Renault-Nissan to Push the Production to 8 Lakh Units by 2016

The people working with the development of Japanese- Franco car manufacturing joint venture Renault Nissan said that company is on the double for its expansion plans in India, with an aim of producing up to 8,00,000 units of cars at the Chennai plant by 2015-16. The partners are organizing to outpace the competition to the next level by bringing in at least 20-22 cars across all the categories in the next 4-5 years, which will be a challenge for the major market leaders like Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai India.

The aim of the joint venture is to barge in all the segments of the cars, right from entry- level cars to the premium SUVs and sedan segment cars. To save on the cost of design and development of creating an all new model, the models design will be replaced with the other model design of the other brand which is the key strategy for the new product portfolio. The company is aiming at the cross badging of Nissan Sunny, Nissan Evalia and Renault Duster in coming years for cutting down the development cost of the venture and to minimize the lead time for launching their products in the Indian market.

The cost of the Renault-badged product will be higher than those of the Nissan brand products. Nissan Evalia was unveiled in the Auto Expo 2012 and Nissan sunny was launched in 2011, while Renault Duster will be available in India near Diwali. Mr. Takayuki Ishida, Nissan India’s managing director reported that the company has increased the production capacity to 4,00,000 units from 2,00,000 units from April 2012. As per the increase in the demand in the local markets as well as in the export market, the options for expanding the business are always explored.