Force Motors is planning to set up its third manufacturing facility to make smaller commercial vehicles (SCVs).
Its managing director Prasan Firodia told FE on Thursday that, ?We have received an encouraging response to the SCV Trump and plan to introduce more products in the smaller commercial vehicle segment. We have plans to set up a new manufacturing plant to make SCVs with an estimated capacity of 1,00,000 units per annum initially and are in talks with state governments in the South besides Gujarat and Maharashtra. We are studying the locations, subsidies, tax benefits among other things and hope to finalise the location soon.?
The company may invest Rs 350-400 crore in the manufacturing plant. ?We want to introduce two more products by 2012 to exploit the huge potential in this segment,? he added.
According to him, the sports utility vehicle (SUV) that the company plans to introduce in the first quarter of 2011 would have Mercedes gear box, 2.2 litre engine and be BS III compliant, which would be scaled up to BS IV later.
Consultants such as Lotus Engineering and Mercedes Benz have played crucial role in steering the vehicle, he added. Firodia said the company would also introduce a new Tempo Traveller and a Trax with additional features including a new gear box, noise vibration technology which would give 10% more fuel efficiency. Similarly, Trax would be upgraded to a higher level and these products would hit the roads during 2011. In the 12,000 units industry, Tempo Traveller holds 60% market share and 55% market share in the 15,000 Trax segment, he claimed.
?A multi utility vehicle and a multi purpose vehicle are also being strong pursued which would take us into the personalised vehicle space and it is our conscious decision to do so, he said.