Japanese car maker Nissan and French automaker Renault have a joint venture, Nissan-Renault in India. They have a new manufacturing unit coming up near Chennai which will commence production by May 2010. Nissan and Renault are looking at introducing new car models in India. Both the companies will use this manufacturing unit in India to cater to the domestic as well as overseas demands.
The new manufacturing unit has a capacity of producing 4 lakh cars annually and once this unit is fully functional Nissan’s global manufacturing capacity will escalate to one million cars annually. Nissan is planning to introduce 9 new models in India of which five will be manufactured in the country and four models will be imported as completely built units. The new models manufactured at the new unit will be exported to the neighboring countries. 85 percent of the components will be sourced locally of which 50 percent alone will be from the state of Tamil Nadu itself.
The company currently has a work force of 700 people and will expand it to 3000 workers once the production starts in full capacity. The core staff for this plant has already been sent to Nissan’s UK and Japan plants for training purposes.
