What’s not speculation -
Nissan is conducting a press conference in Mumbai tomorrow morning, hosted by the senior management members. Nissan describes the press conference as an “important strategic announcement.”
What’s speculation -
Nissan will announce the revival of the Datsun brand and also announce the broader scope of work with its LCV partner Ashok Leyland, who will play an important hand in developing the low cost vehicle, tomorrow at the press conference. Nissan and Ashok Leyland will start working on the low cost vehicle this year and the first model will roll out in 2014. Nissan could either use the Oragadam facility in Chennai where Micra and Sunny are manufactured, to build the cars or sanction a new manufacturing facility in another part of India for this purpose.
click through to read on
While the Bajaj RE60 has not gone down well with the Renault-Nissan, the plans of entering the low-cost, high-volumes segment are still strong for the French-Japanese partnership.
Nissan’s Andy Palmer has told Economic Times that they are working on a new Ultra Low Cost (ULC) project with Ashok Leyland and the car should be ready by 2014. The new ULC will be priced in the bracket of 2-4 lakhs.
This is not the first time Nissan and Ashok Leyland have partnered on a project. The Dost LCV and the Stile MPV are proven examples to show these companies are working well together.
The first mini commercial vehicle from the Ashok Leyland-Nissan Motor Company JV dubbed “Dost” was unveiled today in Chennai. The 1.25-tonne LCV is not new to IAB readers as we have captured pictures while the mule was testing near Chennai. The LCV will be manufactured at the Hosur facility for a market launch during the second quarter of 2011-12. The vehicle will not bear Nissan logos. Powered using a 3-cylinder [ Read More ]
Sources tell us the truck we spotted day before yesterday on the outskirts of Chennai city is most likely the truck Ashok Leyland and Nissan and working jointly towards.
The cabin is lifted from a phased-out Nissan mini truck and the company is conducting trials for various payloads. Readers of IAB have spotted this truck with different number of water cans on other occasions. The driver though, everytime, had plugged into his iPod while the installed equipment on-board did all the data logging for him.
Sources suggest to IAB a 1.5-liter 4-cylinder diesel engine could power this humongous mini truck. The ECU for the engine might come from Delphi while the unit’s calibration could have taken place at AVL in Austria.
There is not much available on the launch date but the pace at which this project is progressing, we think a 2011 debut is feasible.
We’ll keep a close eye on this guy.
Have you seen a similar test mule? Then why not write to me at notjustshrawan (at) gmail.com ?
State-run Indian Oil Corporation plans to set up the country’s 2nd hydrogen fuel-dispensing station in the vicinity of the Commonwealth Games Village before 2010 for catering to more than 100 government vehicles to be used for demonstrating the usefulness of the fuel. The station will dispense a mix of hydrogen and CNG in the ratio of 20:80. In the initial phase, Indian Oil is targeting CNG vehicle which can be run on hydrogen fuel mix with a little modification. However a completely new engine (Fuel Cell) is required for using 100% pure hydrogen as fuel.
As an effect of the sharp drop in cargo movement, truck sales plunged 73.5% to 6,221 units in December 2008 against 24,222 units in December 2007, according to the Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training (IFTRT) The decline in truck sales is also said to be due to
excess capacity build-up.
* Tractor-trailers of 30-49 tonne range witnessed a maximum drop of 94.7 per cent in December sales at 114 units (2,143 units) – Mostly used to transport high-density cargoes such as cement, fertilizer, timber, ores and steel predominantly to railways for further transportation.
* Sales of Multi-axle vehicles of 25.2-31 tonne sunk 79 per cent to 2,033 units ( 9,587 units).
* Affected by the infrastructure projects in abeyance, sales of Tipper trucks used mainly in construction dipped 73 per cent to 1,462 units (5,358 units) – Virtually due to stoppage of construction and infrastructure projects in many parts of the country in the last three months in the wake of financial crunch.
India’s leading commercial vehicles manufacturer Ashok Leyland will be renamed Hinduja Motors, a long time after the Hinduja group took ownership of the company in early 1987. However, when the change will occur is not clear yet and we expect this to happen very shortly. This is a big turnaround of sorts as the name bears historic significance. Some news from Ashok Leyland- Hinduja Group flagship Ashok Leyland on 28th [ Read More ]
