Automotive Updates - 5th and 6th November 2015

• Eicher Motors owned Royal Enfield will be setting up its third plant in Vallam Vadagal near Oragadam, to double its total motorcycle production capacity to 9,00,000 by 2018 from current 4.5 lakh, said Siddhartha Lal, MD & CEO, Eicher Motor.This expansion will be a part of the new capital expenditure that the company will announce in the next quarter.(Etauto)

• Shares in Japan’s Takata Corp slumped by a quarter on Thursday as more auto-makers considered no longer using its air bag inflators, casting further doubt on the future of the parts supplier at the centre of a global recall crisis.A day after Takata’s biggest customer, Honda Motor Co , said it would stop fitting its cars with the company’s air bag inflators, Mazda Motor Corp said it would drop Takata inflators containing ammonium nitrate from its new cars.apanese automakers Mitsubishi Motors Corp and Subaru-maker Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd also said they were thinking about switching away from Takata’s inflators.(livemint)

• Ford India has rolled out millionth vehicle and engine from its Chennai plant, a milestone for the facility that kick-started the company’s growth journey in the Indian market in 1999. Ford EcoSport was the millionth vehicle to roll off the Chennai assembly line, Ford India said in a statement. “Chennai is from where we started our Make in India journey,” Executive Director, Manufacturing Ford Chennai Vehicle Assembly and Engine Plant, Balasundaram Radhakrishnan said.(cartrade)

• Tata is set to launch the replacement of the ageing Indica and Indigo CS soon. The carmaker has begun teasing the model via an online video. The new siblings, codenamed ‘Kite 4’ for the hatchback and ‘Kite 5’ for the compact sedan, will share their platform and certain components with the Indica though in essence the two will be completely new cars. Both Kite body styles will use the original Indica’s X0 platform as a base, but apart from a few ‘hard points’ like the pedal box, engine firewall and wheelbase, there will be no carryover parts. The X0 platform itself will be greatly beefed up to improve torsional rigidity, refinement and dynamics.  - See more at: http://www.autocarpro.in/news-national/tata-set-launch-kite-hatchback-compact-sedan-soon-9645#sthash.cdMJFA1p.dpuf

• Moody's has downgraded Volkswagen's debt due to the possible financial impact of the company's car emissions scandal.Moody's Investors Service said Wednesday it had cut the rating on VW's long-term unsecured debt, short-term debtknown as commercial paper, and subordinated notes issued by its finance arm and guaranteed by the company.(businesstodY)

• Chennai-based truckmaker Ashok Leyland has announced that the board has decided to rope in former Nissan boss Andrew C Palmer as an Additional Director under the Independent category. The move is subject to approval of shareholders at a general meeting.Currently, Palmer is the CEO of British luxury car brand Aston Martin.Interestingly, Palmer was one of the key architects of the joint venture Nissan struck with Ashok Leyland in May 2008. He was then a Corporate Vice-President taking care of the Light Commercial Vehicles business unit for Nissan Motor Company, Japan. (Etauto)

• As part of efforts to improve customer service, Ford India plans to share information related to service charges of a vehicle on its website. The company is introducing 'Ford Service Promise' by which customers could know the exact service charge of a vehicle, before walking into dealers, a top company official said today. "The information will be on the company's website within the next month or so and by providing details about the vehicle, like age of the vehicle, km run, the cost of the service can be ascertained through all customer touch points," Ford Customer Service Operations vice president N Prabhu told reporters here.(cartrade)