\One scooter a minute rolls off Yamaha factory’s assembly line, as 20-year-olds are busy working on a line of gleaming scooters that move steadily past on conveyors. This is the scene that greets media persons on a tour of the Japanese two-wheeler manufacturer’s factory near Chennai.

Yamaha’s third production facility and soon to be its largest factory in India, now produces about 4.5 lakh scooters and motorcycles a year. It started production earlier this year and this capacity will “increase to six lakh immediately”, said Takashi Terabayashi, Managing Director, India Yamaha.

By 2018 this output will triple to about 18 lakh, he added.

The company has two more factories in the North. But the Chennai unit will account for 70 per cent of its production once the full capacity is reached. Space to expand, port infrastructure to export and access to a large segment of the domestic market are key factors behind Yamaha’s choice to set up the unit here, company officials said.

2,000 employees The factory now employs about 2,000 persons and the number will nearly double once the expansion is in place in 2018. Nearly half of them will be women employees. The company also has training facilities in place for the youngsters, said Terabayashi.

India Yamaha will also be stepping up exports of completely knocked down kits and components from the unit soon, he added. Yamaha has invested about ₹1,200 crore in the unit and by 2018 the investment will touch about ₹1,500 crore at the 109-acre facility at Vallam-Vadagal, an industrial hub about 40-km to the west of Chennai. Three lines each with a capacity of about 6 lakh units a year will be in place at full capacity.

Riuji Kawashima, Deputy Managing Director, India Yamaha, said that as of now the unit churns about 1,400-1,500 vehicles a day against a capacity of about 1,600.

Yamaha entered the market here with premium segment bikes and is steadily increasing mass market, commuter and fashion segment scooters and motorcycles to build up volumes.