Nissan To Start Diesel Engine Production At Chennai, India

Japanese automaker Nissan is planning to manufacture the diesel engines for its two car models which rolled into production in May 2010 at Oragadam near Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The company expressed its desire to dedicate a part of its INR 4500 Billion investment to hike the share of localization of production. Moreover even the current production of cars is expected to double soon. Nissan is also taking help of its strategic partner the French automaker Renault.



The Japanese automaker had earlier proposed that the investment will be a seven year long process. However seeing the current turn in Indian economy, the company is expected to complete the investments before the decided time frame. Nissan is thinking to bring a diesel variant of its model Nissan Sunny and hence wishes to roll its own diesel engine into the market. We can expect the diesel version of Nissan Micra too if the economy becomes conducive to the automaker's plans.

When the production of petrol engines had started in the Chennai plant, the plant had achieved a record production of 100,000 units within just 15 months. The record production was a part of Nissan Green Project 2010 as reported by CrazyEngineers earlier. The petrol engines which were produced were HR12DE aimed at reducing the harmful effect of gasoline on environment.

Currently, Nissan has 47 dealers across the country and it plans to double the number at least reaching a minimum of 70 dealers at the end of this year. This year's sales target is kept to be 40000 units and the company hopes to sell around 80% of stock. For achieving this Nissan has a tie up with many banks and the SBI is even ready to give loans to buyers at 11.25% (float) and 11.75% (fixed) interest rates.