Tata Motors is ready to join Maruti Suzuki in the million unit club this year, making it another highlight for one of India’s oldest car makers and ripening of the local automobile sector, whose volumes have traditionally lagged those of its oversees counterparts.
An increase in the manufacture of Nano will take Tata Motors, over the million unit production level up to a point to derive benefits from economies of scale.
The company is planning to raise the Nano’s production up to 25,000 units per month by Q1 of calendar year 2011. a top company official said, “The Nano production from Sanand started in June and should peak by January 2011. With Nano averaging 20,000-25,000 a month, up from around 7,000-8,000 units a month right now, Tata Motors should comfortably cross the million unit mark in combined truck and passenger vehicle sales.”
Previous year, Tata Motors sold about 2.65-lakh passenger cars, including exports. With JLR, the overall passenger car figure increased to over 4.5 lakh units. Including trucks and buses, the last figure was just below 8,50,000 units.