Apr 8th, 2008 by RJ Menezes
As the Indian car market starts to mature into a viable trade we begin to see more and more automakers starting to splash serious dollar in that region. India’s own Tata Motors is now being joined by Italian automotive giant, Fiat, in investing billions of dollars into new production and engineering facilities in the state of Maharashtra.
Fiat will be investing $585 million to boost capacity at their Fiat India venture in Ranjangaon near Pune. The investment programs are designed to boost the two companies’ production capacity in Maharashtra to more than 800,000 units over the next four to five years. Tata is the No. 2 car maker in India, right behind Maruti Suzuki. They are hoping to better that in the future by upping capacity.
Oddly enough, the investment plans do not include the Nano, Tata’s $2,500 micro-car. The Nano will still be produced on the other side of the country, in Singur near Calcutta. Tata said it has no plans to build the Nano at its Pune facility.
By pumping so much money into the Indian market, you can see that automakers are hell bent on getting this right and making India profitable. I’ve been writing for a while now in this blog about how India is what’s next in car makers minds. It seems we’ll just have to wait and see how that affects us.