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MOTORINDIA
l
September 2012
103
last one year. To know more
about the success of the LCV,
MOTORINDIA recently spoke
to Dr. N. Saravanan, Chief Ex-
ecutive Officer, Nissan Ashok
Leyland Technologies Ltd.
Dr. Saravanan revealed that
his firm has several ambi-
tious plans for the future. For
instance, the second product
from the AL-Nissan stable,
namely, Nissan Evalia, is ex-
pected to hit the Indian roads
by the end of September 2012.
This will be followed by the
CNG variant and the passenger
version of the DOST. Towards the close of 2013, Ashok
Leyland will introduce Stile, the JV’s next LCV model,
followed by the launch of a variant of the Evalia. In two
years’ time, the JV will also develop buses and trucks in
the 6-tonne category with the main objective of custom-
ising all the vehicles with local components.
According to Dr. Saravanan, the indigenisation drive
has helped in considerably reducing the vehicle cost. He
attributed the success of DOST to its technology, design
and the wide sales network, supported by Nissan’s proc-
ess technology.
Also, the JV has richly benefited Nissan for the devel-
opment of vehicles of Japanese quality at Indian cost in
the shortest possible time. Ultimately, what has driven
the success of the joint venture is the frugal engineering
system. The products developed at the JV plant also of-
fer scope for export of vehicles to different countries.
For instance, Ashok Leyland has plans to export ve-
hicles to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, whereas Nissan
can tap the potential of markets like Thailand and In-
donesia.
State-of-the-art new plant
Dr. Saravanan further disclosed that under the JV
agreement, products have been initially developed at
AL’s Hosur and Renault Nissan’s Oragadam plant. In
order to meet the requirements of the company’s new
product development, another state-of-the-art manu-
facturing plant is planned at Pillaipakkam on the out-
skirts of Chennai. This plant will have all the required
facilities, including a modern lab, test shop, production
shop, etc. The company is awaiting final approval for
the scheduled construction at the new plant next year.
w
Even before the launch of the DOST, the company put the
vehicle through a two million kilometre test-run, apart
from vigorous testing of around 5,000 components.
vehicle zone