Automotive Updates - 16th May 2014

• Steel Strips Wheels Ltd (SSWL), the Punjab-based automotive steel wheel manufacturer, has bagged an export order for the supply of 150,000 wheel rims to Peugeot France. The size of the deal is around Rs 12.21 crore. According to company sources, this is the biggest export order after it won a Rs 29.73 crore worth deal to supply car wheel rims to SsangYong Motors Company (SYMC) in Korea in November 2013. With this, SSWL became the first Indian company to supply components to SsangYong.

• Terra Motors Corporation, Japan’s top electric two and three-wheeler manufacturer, has raised $10 million (Rs 59.50 crore) to finance its expansion plans in Asian markets, including India. Terra Motors plans to enter India later this year with its executive scooter A4000i.

• Autocar Professional learns that while Tata Motors’ Pune-based Engineering Research Centre (ERC) is working on a number of engine families (for passenger cars and commercial vehicles), the facility has developed an all-new four-cylinder (inline), 3-litre diesel engine with common-rail fuel injection technology. However, reliable sources say that the company is yet to take a call on its end applications.

• Karsan, a Turkish automaker, said on Thursday it had reached a preliminary agreement with Chinese firm Wuhan Zhong to set up a production facility in China.The joint venture, in which Karsan will hold a 35 percent stake, will produce an annual 30,000 units of its J10 model and other products, Karsan said in a filing with the Istanbul Stock Exchange.

• It is official that the Toyota Corolla Altis will be offered in seven variants. While four of these will be diesel, the other three will be petrol. For now, Toyota will not be launching the base variant of the petrol and it might be introduced later as a base version. The four diesel variants are the- J, JS, G and GL while the three petrols are- V, VL MT and VL AT. 

• About three months after the start of production of the new Mercedes-Benz C-class at the Bremen plant in Germany, the second of the total of four locations has started production of the highest-volume Mercedes-Benz model line. For the East London plant in South Africa, this is already the fourth generation of the C-class sedan. The new C-class is the first Mercedes-Benz model to be produced on four continents: Bremen and East London will be followed by the plants in Tuscaloosa/Alabama (USA) and Beijing (China) within the next few months.

• Datsun the subsidiary of Japanese auto gaint Nissan Motors had unveiled the on-DO sedan recently in Russia and is expected to launch the same sometimes in the month of June. Apart from it the Japanese car maker is also going to launch its hatchback mi-DO also in Russian car market during the month of August this year. Now it is rumored that car maker is working on introducing a crossover based on redi-GO concept in Russian market which would be its third product in Russia at the earliest. This was also confirmed by company’s authentic source Mr. Jerome Him, Head, Datsun Russia.

Images from 

http://www.aawsat.net/2014/02/article55329259