The Hindu Business Line : Bajaj-Renault small car design team will be 80% Indian

Pune, July 10 The design team that will develop the new $2,500 car for the Bajaj Auto Renault-Nissan joint venture company will comprise nearly 80 per cent Indian engineers to achieve cost competency, while the remaining will be drawn from the alliance partners.

Renault has appointed a programme director to head the team for which recruitment has started.

Speaking after the inauguration of Renault’s International Logistic Network (ILN) facility here, Mr Sylvain Bilaine, Managing Director, Renault India, said that the terms of the join venture agreement were clear, and the formal signing of the memorandum of understanding would happen soon.

“The car will compete with the Tata Nano, but will not be a me-too product,” Mr Blaine said, adding that Bajaj Auto aims to be the leader in developing it. “The Renault-Nissan alliance will support only what Bajaj doesn’t know,” he said, indicating that making of the body in white would be one of the support areas. The car that will be 100 per cent localised will come into the market in the first quarter of 2011. The company also has export plans for the product.

Renault’s ILN facility at Dighi near Pune, its first in Asia and the seventh in the world, will support its global manufacturing. Stating that India was an effective source of parts, Mr Jean Louis Fournier, Senior Manager Logistics for Renault S.A.S. said that logistics was a huge challenge for the company which manufactured 10,000 cars around the world everyday.

Exports

The company will export containers to Turkey, Korea, France, South Africa and Romania from this facility and also hopes to also service Russia where Renault recently entered into a JV with carmaker AvtoVAZ.

Renault, which has 30 Indian suppliers as of now, will ship 400 containers during 2008, and expects these numbers to be 50 and 1,000 respectively next year. The company has identified an export potential of Rs 600 crore during 2009 and 1,200 crore in 2010.