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The Vento has been designed and tuned keeping in mind the demands of the Indian buyer in the premium entry level sedan market. The suspension has been beefed up to offer a comfortable ride quality on the Indian roads without compromising on handling. Also expect the wheelbase to be enhanced so as to offer more cabin space, something which dogs the Polo against its rivals. The Vento though, will come loaded with all the bells and whistles seen on modern-day sedans including Anti-lock Braking Systems (ABS) and airbags.

After infiltrating most of the luxury segments in the country including the premium SUV market with the Toureg and the recently launched Phaeton in the luxury sedan space, Volkswagen is now prepared to battle in the entry level luxury sedan bracket with the Vento.

Ford Figo production is expected to go up as company is adding second shift to its production in its chennai plant.

Ford Figo plant is located at Sriperampudur in chennai. It was the first foreign auto company to set up plant in chennai followed by Hyundai.

Figo has received extremely good response and there is a waiting list of 6 months for the car in India and it has a huge export market in South africa. So the company is looking to ramping up production in chennai plant.

Boneham had indicated that the company plans to hire 600-700 personnel at the plant and most of them would be diploma holders and fresh pass-outs.

Ford India is gearing up production to export the Figo to South Africa, the company said in a statement.

Figo was launched in March in India. The company started work on the small car in 2007 and the global unveiling of the Figo was done in September last year.

The company reported a 267 per cent jump in sales to 7,269 units in June compared to 1,982 units in the same period last year.

Currently, the company has close to 4,000 employees and more than 167 dealership outlets across 97 cities pan-India. Its portfolio of vehicles includes the Ikon, Endeavour and Fiesta, besides the Figo.

TATA Motors international sales has increased by 50%.  Tata Motors today said its global sales increased by 50 per cent in May to 79,819 units on robust demand for both commercial and passenger vehicles.  Sales of luxury models from Jaguar Land Rover stood at 19,053 units during May, up 72 per cent from the same period last year, the company said in a statement.

While sales of Jaguar brand luxury sedans jumped by 34 per cent last month to 5,120 units, Land Rover sales were 93 per cent higher at 13,933 units, it added.   It said total passenger vehicles sales stood at 43,130 units in May, 2010, a growth of 54 per cent from the corresponding month last year .

Commercial vehicles sales were also up by 45 per cent to 36,689 units from the same month last year, it added.

The Tata Motors Group’s global sales comprise the Tata, Tata Daewoo and Hispano Carrocera range of commercial vehicles; Tata passenger vehicles, along with distributed brands in India; and Jaguar and Land Rover.

TN is losing its old partner in development.

Yes. Hyundai India  is setting up an Ancillary unit in Nellore , Andhra Pradesh.

Automobile major Hyundai is set to ink an MoU with Andhra Pradesh Government to set up a spare parts facility and other ancillary units in the state entailing an investment of over Rs 1,000 crore.

According to a senior Government official, they had a series of meetings with Hyundai representatives and managed to convince the company to set up units at Nellore, a district bordering Tamil Nadu, where the South Korean giant has a manufacturing plant at Chennai.

“The company said it will invest Rs 500 crore in the first phase and Rs 700 crore in the second phase. In turn the government will offer 50 acres of land at nominal price in the first phase and same size land in the second phase,” B Sam Bob, Principal Secretary (Industries), told PTI here today.

He said they were yet to receive terms and conditions of the MOU from Hyundai and expect to close the deal before month end. “There is no major automobile-related industry in the state. This will become a model for other automakers. Carmakers may show interest to set up manufacturing facility once basic infrastructure is in place,” Sam Bob said.

Hyundai CEO Mong Koo Chung has reportedly met Chief Minister K Rosaiah and held discussions in this regard.

Hyundai has a research and development centre in Hyderabad, which supports all back-end operations across the company’s car line-up.

Volvo-Eicher plant in Pitampur Madhya Pradesh

About the news from Economic Times:

VE Commercial Vehicles plans to set up a new engine-making facility with an investment of Rs 288 crore, the equal equity joint venture between Eicher Motors and Sweden’s Volvo said on Friday.

The new unit, located at Pitampur in Madhya Pradesh, will be operational in the second half of 2012 and will serve as the global base for Volvo’s commercial vehicles in the medium duty platform.

The new facility would treble the joint venture’s annual engine production capacity to 1.25 lakh units from the existing 40,000 units per year, making it the country’s largest commercial vehicle engine manufacturer.

Siddhartha Lal, MD and CEO of VE Commercial Vehicles, said the unit will produce base engines meeting the new Euro VI emission norms. The plant will make engines with 5, 7 and 8 litre capacity (a litre is equal to 1,000 cc engine displacement).

The medium-duty engines will be introduced in Volvo’s trucks and buses worldwide over the next few years. The engines will also be used for Eicher’s next-generation range of heavy-duty commercial vehicles likely to roll out in 2013.

The joint venture will ship around 30,000 base engines to Volvo’s power train facility in France, where they will be assembled for Volvo’s Euro V and Euro VI requirements. Volvo sources a fifth of its components from low-cost countries like India.

Production at Hyundai Motors plant in chennai has resumed today. But a part of employees where seen striking for the third consecutive day.

Hyundai spokesman has said that the striking employees has been evicted from the campus.

Some workers at Hyundai’s plant in the southern city of Chennai had halted work on Monday demanding full re-instatement of dismissed employees in violation of orders while conciliation on the issue was under way, the company had said. The spokesman said negotiations with the striking workers were on.

Hyundai Motor, South Korea’s top auto maker, is the No. 2 brand in the fast-growing Indian market, competing with Maruti Suzuki. Its Indian plant produces cars for both local and overseas markets and employs around 10,000 worker

Hyundai Motors employee strike enters 2nd day

This strike is due to dismissal of 67 employees by the company.

ccording to the company, the strike has come at a wrong time as its two plants were shut down last month for maintenance May 24-June 3 and production resumed June 4.

The factory has around 1,650 permanent workers, 2,000 casual labourers, 1,500 apprentices, 1,000 Hyundai trade apprentices and 1,200 technical trainees.

The current strike at the Irrungattukottai plant is in violation of the orders of the district munsif-cum-judicial magistrate, Sriperumbedur, which prohibits any unlawful activity within the factory and within 100 metres radius of the factory premises, the company said.

“This is a legal strike. We had given strike notice May 5 itself,” Thangapandian said.

Last year, the workers had gone on a six-day strike protesting the wage agreement the management had negotiated with a workers committee.

Peace was brokered by Labour Minister T.M. Anbarasan and an agreement was signed between HMIEU and the management. As per the agreement, the company took back 20 of the 87 dismissed employees. It did not agree with the union’s demand to absorb the other 67.

Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor India Ltd has resorted to direct negotiations with the dismissed workers and offered them compensation.

Last month, the company settled the claims of two dismissed workers and had said the process is on in settling the accounts of 20 more.

The company alleged that the HMIEU was preventing the workers from signing the direct settlement.

Kabirdass Motor IPO is a different kind of IPO. It an Auto company but it operates in electric motors.

About Kabirdas Motors IPO:

KMCL was formed in 2006 to develop and commercialize zero emission vehicles (“ZEV”) in the name of ‘XITE’. Kabirdass is a group company of Best Cast IT Ltd (Best Cast), which is a leading aluminum casting and machined automobile parts manufacturing company. The Company which has been selling XITE-bikes and scooters for over a year now maps its customer profile less than 18 years of age or above 40 years of age. The company is also developing new models of electric scooters suiting the requirements of different type of customers.

About the Listing Plans of the company:

]KMCL is looking to use the proceeds of the issue towards the expansion of its existing facilities and for the manufacturing of spare parts of electric scooters. This would help the Company to reduce the cost and realise better margins on the product. Additional assembly lines would also be set up increasing the installed capacity from 40, 500 units to 2,00,000 units after the expansion

Sebi Approval:

Kabirdass Motor Company Ltd., has secured Sebi approval for its upcoming public issue. The public float is expected to hit the market within next 1-2 months and the company is hoping to raise up to Rs 67 crores from the process.

Lead Managers for the issue:

Keynote Corporate Services Ltd. and Canara Bank are the BRLMs to the issue while Cameo Corporate Services is the registrar to the issue.

Mahindra Logan sales flat for may . This is after the exit of partner Renault from Mahindra Renault Joint Venture.

Here is the press release from Economic Times

Sales of Logan, Mahindra & Mahindra’s only car, grew by a meagre 5 per cent in May over the comparable period last year in an overall booming market.

This was achieved largely on account of up to Rs 80,000 price cut in April 2010, a month when sales dipped to 303 units from 550 units in the same month last year.

As per the data with the company, Logan sales in May, this year, stood at 450 units compared to 427 units in the same month in 2009.

Mahindra also had a difference of opinion with its erstwhile joint venture partner Renault, a leading French car maker, over reducing the size of the car to improve sales.

The Indian auto maker, however, resorted to price cut on April 22, within a week of parting ways with Renault, which was against cutting the Logan size to less than four metre to avail duty benefits.

After separation, Renault has allowed M&M to produce the car under a licence agreement.

Consequently, sales improved to 450 units in May this year from over 303 units in the previous month that saw a decline from 351 units in March 2010.

Price Cut:

When contacted, an M&M spokesperson said, “It will not be proper to compare the sales with May last year as there was no price cut in the year-ago month and sales were falling. The comparison should be done with April this year, when we cut the prices.”

However, he said that the price cut was not advertised, indicating it could have resulted in higher sales.

Logan History:

Launched in 2007, ‘Logan’ has not been able to make its mark in the Indian market, selling just over 44,000 units since launch.

In 2009-10 its sales dwindled to just 5,332 units from 13,423 in the previous financial year.

Toyota Motors is planning to set up a R&D center and Engine Plant in India.

Toyota Kirloskar Motors reported 54.18 per cent jump in sales at 6,050 units for May. The company had sold 3,924 units in the corresponding month last year, Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) said in a statement. “We are happy with the consistent growth in sales that we have been registering, especially as the Innova, Corolla and Fortuner maintain market leadership in their respective segments,” TKM Deputy Managing Director (Marketing) Sandeep Singh said.

About Toyota Kirlokar:

TKM, a joint venture between the world’s largest carmaker Toyota and the Kirloskar Group, has its manufacturing facility in Bangalore and is currently constructing the second plant at the same location to roll out a small car by early 2011.

Managing Director of Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) Hiroshi Nakagawa said Toyota currently undertakes R&D in Japan and Thailand, among other places.

He said one of the options being considered now is to set up a R&D facility in India. The proposal is at the discussion stage and it is his “wish and hope” that it would be established in future.

Asked if the company has plans to set up an engine plant in India, Nakagawa told reporters on the sidelines of Karnataka government-organised Global Investors’ Meet here: “If we have a chance, we should establish engine facility here in India also”.

But he indicated that the company would look at setting up an engine plant only when its annual sales in India reaches 200,000 units-plus. Nakagawa said TKM is hiring 2,000 employees for its second plant, coming up at a cost of Rs 3,200 crore here. For the current calendar year, TKM is targeting sales of 70,000 units from 55,000 in 2009.

He said TKM would start production of its compact car Etios, being developed exclusively for the Indian market, at the end of the current calendar year. Once this product is “accepted” in India, the company would look at export opportunities of this car. In the first year, TKM is looking at manufacturing 70,000 units of Etios, Nakagawa said.

TATA Motors Quarter 4 results have been fantastic.

Net profit has increased to Rs.2571 crores as against 2500 crores loss last year.

The company has shown a consolidated total income of Rs 92,519.25 crore during the fiscal against a consolidated total income of Rs 70,880.95 crore in 2008-09

Tata Motors reported total sales of 6,67,971 units during 2009-10. It sold 5,06,421 units in the previous fiscal.
Commercial vehicle sales in the domestic market were at 3,73,842 units last fiscal against 2,65,373 units in 2008-09, the statement said. In the passenger cars and utility vehicles segment, the company reported an annual sale of 2,60,020 units in the year ended March 2010 over 2,07,512 units in 2008-09.

Exports during the fiscal was 34,108 units over the 33,536 units it shipped to overseas markets in the previous fiscal, Tata Motors added.

Regarding its JLR brands, the company said the British subsidiary had turned profitable during the last fiscal with a profit before tax of 32 million pound.

“During the year, the company put in place a long-term financing plan, including the draw-down of 340 million pound sterling of EIB loan and syndication of inventory financing (for JLR),” it added.

The two brands sold 1,93,982 units during 2009-10. They had reported sales of 1,67,348 units in the 10 months period between June 2008, when Tata Motors acquired them, and March 2009, the statement said.

JK Tyre India is plannign to set up a plant in chennai at the cost of 930 crore rupees. This plant is to have a capacity of 29 lakh units per year.

The chennai plant will have a capacity to produce 25 lakh passenger car radials and 4 lakh truck and bus radials every year, he added.

The company has already acquired over 100 acres of land for the facility.

Of the total planned investment, Rs 300 crore will be funded through internal accruals and the rest will be raised from various financial institutions, JK Tyre & Industries President and Director Arun K Bajoria said.

The company currently produces 1.63 crore tyres every year. The domestic facilities produces 97 lakh units, while 66 lakh tyres are rolled out in Mexico.

“By this fiscal-end, we will add 7 lakh units more capacity in India. The domestic capacity will finally reach 1.25 crore tyres every year in 2012,” Bajoria said.

Last year, the company had announced an invest of Rs 1,200 crore over the next 3-4 years to expand its production capacity, including setting up a greenfield plant in South India.

Bridgestone India has decided to start a plant in Pune.

This new plant is exclusively for tyres.

Bridgestone India will establish a new plant near Pune in Maharashtra. The new plant will begin production of passenger car radial tyres (PSR) and truck and bus radial tyres (TBR) in response to the growing demand in India, which is seeing marked economic growth.

The total investment is expected to be about 50 billion yen, that is, about Rs.2,600 crore in a phased manner. The PSR production is scheduled to begin in January 2013 and the TBR production in August 2013.

By the year 2020 the production capacity is slated to reach 10,000 units of PSR and 3,000 units of TBR a day. BSID has reached an understanding with the Government of Maharashtra for acquiring about 8.288 million sq. ft. at the Chakan Industrial Area near Pune, the company said in a statement.

Tata Motors announces selling 20% stake in TELCON to Hitachi.

Auto major Tata Motors today said it has sold 20 per cent stake in Telcon, its construction equipment joint venture with Japan’s Hitachi, to its partner for Rs 1,159 crore. Post the transaction, Tata Motors will own 40 per cent stake in Telcon, while Hitachi will have 60 per cent, the company said in a statement.

Standard Chartered and ABZ partners acted as financial and legal advisers for the deal, it added.

Telcon is one of the leading providers of mining, infrastructure, construction and agricultural equipment and services.

It was set up in 1999 as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Motors and later in 2000, Hitachi was roped in as a joint venture partner by offloading 20 per cent stake, which was subsequently increased by another 20 per cent.

The stake sale by Tata Motors in Telcon is part of its strategy to sell stakes in its group companies to raise funds to repay debt.

Last month, Tata Motors Vice-Chairman Ravi Kant had stated that the company was “looking at various options for offloading the stake” amid reports of State Bank of India eyeing up to 30 per cent in Tata Motors Finance.

In fact, SBI Chairman O P Bhat has said the country’s largest lender was awaiting approval from the Reserve Bank to execute the deal.

Tata Motors Chief Financial Officer C Ramakrishnan had also said the company was looking at reducing debts of about Rs 20,000 crore and was considering various fund raising options.

The company had accumulated the debt mainly on account of its acquisition of the British marques Jaguar Land Rover for $2.3 billion in 2008.

Hero Honda to set up 2 wheeler plant in Karnataka.

Karnataka government is alloting 500 acres near the northern district headquarters town of Dharwad to Hero Honda to set up a Rs 2,000 crore two wheeler manufacturing plant with annual capacity of one lakh units, Large and Medium Industries Minister Murugesh R Nirani said.

“Hero Honda is coming.We are going to give them 500 acres near Hubli airport near Dharwad.They are investing Rs 2,000 crore. They need 1,000 skilled workers. It will have annual capacity to manufacture one lakh two-wheelers”, he told PTI.