Tata Motors will step into the design and manufacture of EVs (electric vehicles) through a joint venture with American carmaker Genovation Cars Inc. The electric car named G2 would be the successor to the Genovation G1, which is essential an European Ford Focus with an electric conversion.
The Genovation G1 had the electric motor, battery string, battery management system, safety system, HVAC, controller and instrumentation all designed in house by Genovation cars.
Andrew Saul, CEO, Genovation Cars -
“We are very pleased to be taking what progress we’ve made in developing an efficient and reliable electric car to the next level by having a company such as Tata involved. We feel they are the company to help us meet our objective of providing customers with safe, sustainable automobiles that do not compromise driving independence.”
The G2 would be an entirely new platform and the manufacturers are planning for both, two door and a four door versions. The initial prototypes are only quarter scale models and tests are underway. Genovation is planning to produce only 1000 cars per year and the ramp up productions depending upon the market response.
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The Financial Times is reporting Ford Motor will finally sign a deal to sell its Volvo cars business to Zhejiang Geely Holding Group of China before the beginning of next week.
Geely is reported to pay a whopping $1.8bn for Volvo. Another $750m of working capital is being raised by the Chinese company to continue operations without any breaks.
Roughly half of the financing for the overall deal would come from banks in Europe and the remaining funds will arrive from China. Though the above details reflect reality, last minute glitches could always happen postponing the signing of the final agreement.
Roughly $500m will come from Swedish banks while another $500-$800 million will come from European banks. The rest of the money will be sourced from China and in-house.
The remainder will come from Chinese banks, local governments and Geely itself.
Freeman Shen, Geely’s head of international operations -
We want to be careful not to damage the Volvo brand
The deal will be one of the biggest in recent times and the largest a Chinese manufacturer has ever been involved in. Geely will run Volvo as a completely separate company and will not dilute the Swedish marque’s brand image.
Six months after Mahindra bought a stake in two wheeler maker Kinetic Motors, it’s intentions are coming out and plans appear to be big for the XYLO maker. Kinetic’s existing scooters Nova and Flyte will be revamped and launched with a new Mahindra-Kinetic badge by the end of this month. Changes are expected to both the scooters, and they should be only cosmetic.
The first Asia Automotive Environmental Forum (AAEF) is being held in Seoul, South Korea. Over 150 government officials, academicians and industry experts attended the forum, which is being co-hosted by Hyundai Motor Company, the Korea Society for Life Cycle Assessment and the Korean Institute of Resources Recycling. On the corporate level, automakers such as China’s Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation and Japan’s Toyota and Nissan participated. Hyundai Motor Company, South Korea’s [ Read More ]
In a radical turnaround of sorts, the “All-American Jeep” might wear a “Made In India” tag if Chrysler LLC gets its way and finishes a deal with Indian contract auto manufacturing firm, Argentum Motors. Jeep is a brand which manufactures open-top off roading vehicle and SUVs and in the U.S.
If media reports are to be believed, Fiat is said to be considering the possibility of using its manufacturing facility at Ranjangaon (near Pune) as a global production base for some of its cars. In fact, among others, Fiat may also build its low-cost hatchback for the European market, at Ranjangaon. This comes after Hyundai and Maruti announced that they will use their respective plants as global production hubs for [ Read More ]
The JV between Tata and Fiat is progressing smoothly. Fiat cars have been sold through Tata dealerships for the past 1 year. Fiat will also supply Tata with its state of the art Diesel and Gasoline engines for its all new Indica V3. Also one of the points to be noted in the Tata Fiat JV is that Fiat will provide financial assistance in Tata’s acquisition of Jaguar,Land Rover and [ Read More ]
Kinetic motors to form a joint venture with Mahindra & Mahindra for manufacturing two wheelers. Kinetic motors have been going under losses for quite a few years now. This quarter they incurred a net loss of INR 18 crore which is marginally less than the last quadrant of the previous year which is INR 19.75 crore. The Mumbai based auto major has been in talks with kinetic motors for quite [ Read More ]
