Automakers ramp-up diesel engine production to meet surging demands

As the recession in the auto market continues; the demand for the diesel-driven cars in India has gone up drastically and the car makers are having a difficult time catching up with it. Almost all the auto makers are trying to increase their production of the diesel cars to meet the customer demands to overcome the slowdown in the auto market.

Ford India's Mr Boneham has already reported that they are facing a supply crunch in the diesel cars segment and intend to meet the demands in the next three months. Mr. Nigel Wark, the executive Director of Marketing, Sales and Services for Ford India has said that the current trend in the Indian auto market supports diesel cars and even though, the vendors are obliging with the components supply, they are still falling behind as the orders from the customers are overpowering. He also said that their Chennai plant is capable of manufacturing 250,000 engines a year and is presently offering diesel variants on Ford Figo hatchback, Ford Fiesta sedan and Ford Fiesta classic models. The growth in the demand of the diesel car variants have been observed in the past six months and the customers are ready to wait for weeks after booking in order to get a diesel car even though the gap between the wait time of the petrol and the diesel variants is three to four weeks.

According to Mr. Shashank Srivastava, Maruti India is also facing a similar situation and clarifies that today's supply crisis is due to the increase in the diesel vehicle demand from 60 % to 80 % in the last ten months, which is totally unexpected and the customers are waiting for the diesel cars even if the petrol variants are readily available. Maruti Suzuki, which currently manufactures 250,000 diesel engines a year, intends to ramp up its production to meet the diesel engine demands. They hope to find the demand of the new Maruti Swift diesel to remain the same as the other diesel cars.

Though many automakers including Maruti Suzuki India, Ford Motors, General Motors, have their own engine manufacturing plants, they are importing a lot of components for diesel powertrain from vendors, like the fuel injector for example is supplied by Bosch India. Mr V.G. Ramakrishna, Director, Frost Sullivan has said that it is not easy to place an order for imported materials for diesel powertrains as the demand for the diesel vehicles is so unpredictable and they have no idea, if this demand continues in future as well.

While Maruti India and Ford India are facing these hardships, General Motors India is quite self-sufficient with their impending launch of Chevrolet Beat Diesel this month as they have commissioned a powertrain plant capable of producing 160, 000 engines both petrol and diesel up to 1.5 litre capacity and are ready to face the demand says Mr P. Balendran, Vice-President of General Motors India.