- Troubled Hindustan Motors (HM) is pinning hopes on its
recent divestment of the Chennai plant and has initiated talks with global
automobile firms to set up a joint venture there. The Chennai plant
manufactures cars under licence from Mitsubishi Motors of Japan.
- The management-employees standoff over lockout at Toyota
Kirloskar Motor's two plants at Bidadi near here persisted today even as one of
the employees on indefinite hunger strike was hospitalised owing to low blood
pressure
- Automobile manufacturers' demand to introduce a policy
for mandatorily scrapping older vehicles has been met with an opposition from
road transport and highways ministry. While Society of Indian Automobile
Manufacturers (Siam) had proposed 1996 as the cut off date, which many feel was
aimed at pushing sales of new personal vehicles, government agencies have
recommended that fitness test results should be the basis for phase out.
- Titan Company's smallest business vertical, Precision
Engineering, aims to record a ten-fold growth by 2019, during which time a
possible decision to carve out the vertical as a separate company would also be
made by Tata Sons.
- Nissan has launched the Datsun brand in Russia with the
introduction of the On-Do sedan. With this, Russia becomes the first
market where all of Nissan’s three brands – Nissan, Infiniti and Datsun .
- Suzuki Motorcycle India Ltd., a subsidiary of one of the
world’s leading two-wheeler manufacturer Suzuki Motor Corporation, registered
an 19% increase in their March 2014 sales figures as compared to March 2013.
- New union president elected for
Maruti Suzuki by polls.
- TATA unveiled the Tata Ace at the
show with a petrol engine, instead of the diesel engine that has garnered it
success in India. The petrol engine in the Ace in Philippines is the same 624
cc 2-cylinder MPFI engine found on the Tata Nano.
- Japan’s Toyota
Motor Corp. said production at its two Indian plants has fallen by
half as many of its unionized workers remain off the job over a pay dispute. Production
has declined 50% to 350 cars from 700 cars a day,
- Lubrizol Corporation has announced
the groundbreaking for a new TempRite chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPVC)
compounding plant in Dahej in India’s Gujarat state. The estimated investment
in the new plant is more than $50 million U.S (Rs 299 crore approx.), and it
will have the capacity to produce approximately 55,000 metric tons of compounds
annually, according to a company statement.
- Honda Mobilio will be built at
Honda's Greater Noida facility. In fact, the Tapukara plant will build the new
Jazz hatchback, which was displayed at the 2014 Auto Expo along with the
Mobilio.
- Volvo Dynamic Steering makes the
truck driver’s job both safer and more comfortable. Now six of the people
behind the unique system have received the Volvo Technology Award 2014, which
was handed over by president and CEO Olof Persson at AB Volvo’s annual general
- Tata Motors is taking its brand
places. Following the entry of Tata into Thailand and Philippines, Jaguar Land
Rover has announced its entry into Myanmar.
- Continental recently launched truck and buses tyres in India and now gearing up
to introduce a complete range of passenger vehicle tyres.Nikolai Setzer, head
of tyre division at the 33-billion conglomerate Continental AG speaking to ETAuto's Nabeel
A Khan,said that Asia Pacific offers great opportunity for the company and it
is open to acquisition to further enhance its presence in this market.
- Investment fund Blackstone
will buy US auto parts maker Gates Global for $5.4 billion, the owners of the
company said Friday.
- Tata Group's private equity (PE) fund Tata Opportunities
Fund (TOF) has bought around 15% stake in Aurangabad based auto component maker
Varroc group for $50 million (Rs 300 crore), the fund announced on Thursday,
making this its first investment outside the Tata Group companies.
- Suzuki Motors has displayed the Carry LCV (Light
Commercial Vehicle) at the ongoing 35th Bangkok Motor Show. The LCV is based on
the Carry MPV (Maruti Eeco is also based on Carry) and will be coming to India
next year with a diesel engine and a petrol/CNG.
- Mahindra, Nissan open to collaboration in EV space. The
collaboration, to which both companies are open, could be in the backend of the
electric vehicle (EV) business and mainly in the area of charging
infrastructure/technology.
- Pravin Shah, CEO, Automotive division, M&M said that the
company is mulling 1% price hike across all products in April. He also said
that price hike is required to offset high operational costs.
- Jaguar Land Rover has completed the installation of the UK’s
largest rooftop solar panel array at its new state-of-the art Engine
Manufacturing Centre at i54 South Staffordshire.
- After establishing a 50:50 joint venture with Chinese
manufacturer Chery, the Chery Jaguar Land Rover’s first joint venture
manufacturing facility is set to go on stream in Q4 this year.
- Despite stiff competition from the Renault Duster and Ford
EcoSport, Mahindra & Mahindra's (M&M's) best-selling sports utility
vehicle (SUV) Scorpio has regained the number one position in the Indian SUV
market for the full fiscal year 2013-14.
- Renault has cut about 2,500 jobs in the first year of a
productivity deal with French unions and is on course to meet its savings
goals, the carmaker said on Thursday.
- stand-off between employees and management of Toyota
Kirloskar Motor over the lockout of two plants at Bidadi near Banglore continues,
employees union has begun indefinite day and night fast, while the company has
called this action "regrettable".
- Hinduja Group flagship company Ashok Leyland today
said it has bagged an order worth $ 50 million (nearly Rs 300 crore) from the
Zimbabwe government for the supply of 670 vehicles.
- The GM China Advanced Technical Center (ATC) in Shanghai has
begun operation of its Vertical Squeeze Casting (VSC) machine – the first in
the world designed for developing next-generation magnesium castings. This
achievement marks a breakthrough in lightweight materials research by General
Motors
- Analysts estimate that US auto sales rose around 2 per cent
over last March, to a total of 1.5 million new cars and trucks.
- Tata MotorsBSE -0.56 % is foraying into the Philippines
market with the export of passenger and commercial vehicles, including Manza
sedan and Xenon pick up trucks, to the South East Asian nation.
- German luxury car maker BMW today launched an all new
version of its M6 Gran Coupe, a four-door sports car, priced at Rs 1.75 crore
(ex-showroom Delhi).
- Beijing Automotive Group Co, Daimler AG's Chinese partner,
said on Thursday it is still seeking acquisition opportunities in Europe and
the United States as part of efforts to accelerate its global expansion.
- In a very surprising but unconfirmed move by the company,
Maruti seems to have withdrawn the Ritz and Dzire automatics from the market
according to a report from Autocar.
- Mazda Motor Corp is to recall about 88,000 vehicles globally
to fix a programming glitch in its engine control computer.
- Ø Volkswagen
Pune plant in Chakan celebrated its five-year anniversary on 31st March 2014. The
Pune plant has also been serving as the Headquarters for the Volkswagen Group
in India. Since the inauguration, more than 367,000 cars have rolled out of the
Volkswagen production facility in Chakan, where currently around 3,400 people
are employed.
- Ø German
carmaker Volkswagen AG has applied to set up its first plant in Thailand to
help narrow the gap with Toyota Motor Corp.
- Ø Volkswagen
agreed with Swedish labour unions to grant full job security to workers at
truckmaker Scania, which the German automotive group is seeking to acquire.
- Ø Daimler
AG and Evonik Industries AG are restructuring their activities in the field of
electric mobility. Daimler will acquire all of the shares held by Evonik in
Li-Tec Battery GmbH (50.1 percent) and in Deutsche ACCUmotive GmbH & Co. KG
(10 percent
- Ø BorgWarner
has finalised its acquisition of Gustav Wahler GmbH, which manufactures exhaust
gas recirculation (EGR) valves and tubes as well as engine thermostats for
both on- and off-road applications, Wahler’s customers include leading
automotive manufacturers from around the world.
- Ø Hindustan
Motors will, in a bid to save itself from heavy losses, handover the possession
of its Chennai manufacturing facility to a separate entity – Hindustan Motor
Finance Corporation.
- Ø Two-wheeler
and three-wheeler manufacturer Piaggio has launched its latest Autorickshaw
offering – the Apé City diesel. The autorickshaw is available only in the BS 3
avatar and costs Rs 1.80 lakh.
- Ø The
new small car from Renault will be based on Renault Nissan new CMF-A platform.
Developed in India, launch is slated for early 2015 while it will be produced
from the joint Renault Nissan plant in Oragadam near Chennai,
- Ø Michael
Mayer has been appointed as Director, Volkswagen Passenger Cars India. He will
take over responsibility as the new Brand Head for Volkswagen Passenger Cars in
India with effect from 1st June 2014.
-
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has announced a
price cut of 75 paise per litre for petrol. The revised prices for petrol came
into effect from midnight of March 31.
- ·
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) will be able to
make more than 6 million cars a year by 2018 as its strategy focused on
relaunching the Alfa Romeo and Maserati marques bears fruit, its chief
executive said on Monday.
- ·
Tata Motors and Narain Karthikeyan team up to
develop new breed of cars. As said by an official company source, Narain will
contribute not just at the conceptual stage, but also with the testing of
prototypes. His key role would be to pass feedbacks in order to make Tata
vehicles more competitive in comparison to its rivals.
- ·
American bike maker Harley-Davidson has joined
the league of rival Royal Enfield in commanding a longer waiting period for its
motorcycles in India. Powered by a lower price tag on account of intense
localisation, Harley's new launch Street 750 comes with an under R5-lakh price
tag and a waiting period of three months.
- ·
Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) will take
fresh guard under Pawan Goenka and Rajesh Jejurikar to kickstart its fledgling
twowheeler business.M&M's two-wheeler business is still a fringe player in
a market dominated by HeroMotoCorp, Honda and Bajaj.
- ·
The last six-speed automatic transmission for
passenger cars rolled off the assembly line in the Saarbrücken plant in Germany
last month, delivered for a Jaguar model. Over the past 13 years, over seven
million units of the 6HP have been produced at the ZF location in Saarbrücken
over the last 13 years.
- ·
India's largest bike-maker Hero MotoCorp has
just launched a face-lifted version of Pleasure automatic scooter in two
variants.
