Nearly a decade after the launch of the ₹1-lakh car Nano, Tata Motors is betting big on its other hatchback and compact sedan models from its Sanand plant in Gujarat.

Having faced excessively low capacity utilisation at what was once called the ‘Nano plant’, the company has now achieved 100 per cent capacity utilisation with annual production reaching about 150,000 units, thanks to Tiago, Tigor and Tigor-electric.

The company has also laid out capacity ramp-up plans. However, no fresh investment is being planned at present for additional assembly lines. But the company does plan to distribute its passenger vehicle (PV) manufacturing between the Pune and Sanand plants to meet its product expansion plans.

“The Sanand plant has evolved from being a single model to a multi-model flexible plant producing 21 variants with 150 vehicle combinations. The plant plays a key role to meet the demand for Tiago and Tigor,” said Mayank Pareek, President of Tata Motors’ Passenger Vehicles Business Unit.

He added that a lean manufacturing process is central to the company’s growth strategy, enabling the Sanand plant to contribute around 60 per cent of the overall PV production. The plant, which manufactures Nano, Tiago and Tigor models including the AMT variants, has rolled out 4,50,000 units so far since inception in 2010 and is likely to cross 5,00,000 by October.

The Sanand plant produced Tata Motors’ first electric PV for commercial use in the form of Tigor EV. This was part of Energy Efficiency Services Ltd’s (EESL) order for procurement of electric cars for government departments.

Pareek said there would be more coming up from the Sanand plant. As per the award, Tata Motors has a target to make 5,000 EV variants of Tigor. About 250 vehicles have already been rolled out as of March 2018.

EV capital

“Sanand is emerging as the EV capital of India. We wish to push our EV manufacturing initiative from this facility,” said Pareek.

However, several factors such as government policy on electric vehicles and charging infrastructure will need to be considered before finalising future plans about EVs, he added.

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