The Hindu Business Line : Tata Motors to expand passenger car unit capacity

Tata Motors plans to expand its production capacity at its Pimpri, Pune passenger car manufacturing facility. Though the company spokesperson said that he had no knowledge on the current development, information available with components suppliers and industry sources indicate that the company is about to increase its production to 1,000 units per day from the current level of 750-800 units per day.

The expansion is expected to be completed in three months.

The last expansion took place in 2004 when production capacity was expanded from 500 to 750 units per day.

New launches

While the company averages sales of 18,500 units on a monthly basis (January-July 2006), the existing annual production capacity of 2.9 lakh would have sufficed the market demands, but industry sources said that the company is gearing up for forthcoming product launches based on the X2 (new Tata Sumo model) and X3 (new Tata Safari) platform.

These expected models are likely to cover up the remaining expanded production capacity at its Pune plant. These models are most likely to be introduced in the third quarter of the fiscal year 2007-08.

Assembly units

In order to meet the forthcoming demand for new models, some of the ancillary suppliers are going to set up small assembly units for `just-in-time' provision of important component supplies at the Tata Motors manufacturing line.

These companies are about to make a substantial amount of investment in order to meet the expansion.

The new models will expand the passenger car range and in anticipation of greater sales, the company has decided to expand its retail network too.

It has an existing chain of 140 dealerships across the country that will be expanded to 600 dealerships in two years.

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