Mitsubishi Motors is planning to enter the small car segment in India in next 2-3 years. The car being developed in Thailand, part of the Thai eco car project will hit the Indian shores. The car will compete with Maruti’s Swift, Hyundai i20, Nissan Micra and VW Polo.
Mitsubishi is building a new car from scratch, which would see mass production to the tune of 200,000 units per year from 2012. About 70 per cent of the plant’s output will be for markets outside Thailand.
The company plans to expand the India plant capacity to 100,000 units per annum from 12,000 units presently. It initially had plans to have a ‘world car’ from India, serving other emerging markets worldwide.
Mitsubishi has the option of importing completely knocked down kits (CKD) of the car from Thailand or manufacture the car entirely at its Chennai plant, which will entail multi-million investments.
A CKD operation will be simple. However, it would not be as cost-effective as a manufacturing operation, due to import duties imposed by the central government. A CKD will also mean limited usage of local parts.
Source: Business Standard
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