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Carlos Ghosn wants India to be a “proving ground” for cars to be developed for similar growth markets.
The feisty CEO and Chairman of the Renault-Nissan Alliance today announced that its Chennai-based engineering facility has developed a common platform, codenamed ‘common module family (CMF)’.
The platform will be the base for a range of new cars from the alliance’s various brands.
The platform tends to be the biggest cost in the development of a car and includes the engine bay, under-body and suspension. It also includes the chassis of the car and electrical systems.
Car bodies can then be assembled on this common platform in whatever form each brand requires. Ghosn said CMF has been built from the ground up in Chennai and is not “localised, but local”. The first car on this platform will roll out from its Chennai plant in 2015.
“This has been designed and put together in India with a lot of Indian skills,” declared Ghosn. “If it’s successful in India, it will go anywhere.”
Gung-ho on the Indian market despite the current slowdown, Ghosn, his 50-minute interaction with the media sparkling with wit and humour, said the alliance has invested $2.5 billion so far in its Indian facility and this could double in the next five years.
“There are so many products coming: Nissan has announced 10 cars for the next three years; Renault will also be announcing new cars,” he said.
“There will be massive investments; this market will be four million cars a year by 2016; we will be producing 600,000 cars by then. We are going to need more than the Chennai plant, which has a 400,000 cars a year capacity.”
Without giving a timeframe, Ghosn said that the alliance is targeting a 15 per cent market share. It expects to finish the year with a 5 per cent share.
Ghosn expects India to be among the top five markets for Renault eventually and among the top ten for Nissan.
“Globally, we are selling 8 million cars. From India, the 160,000 (numbers of cars it produced in India) contribution to the bottomline of the alliance is small.
“But its potential is very big; we are building in India a base that will be substantial both for Renault and Nissan. The most important thing is that it is a proving ground for products in Indonesia, African countries, South America,” explained Ghosn.
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