Ashok Leyland and Nissan announce that JV is on schedule

[GTO]

From the official press release:

CHENNAI: 1st June, 2010: The Hinduja Group flagship, Ashok Leyland and Nissan Motor Company announced today that their joint venture to manufacture and market a whole range of Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs) was proceeding very much on schedule. The partners also disclosed that the first wave of three new products will start rolling out starting mid 2011 of which two will be manufactured at Ashok Leyland’s facilities in Hosur, while the third will roll out of the production lines of Nissan’s plant at Oragadam.

Addressing the media at a press conference, Dr. Andy Palmer, Senior Vice-President, Nissan Motor Company and Chairman, Ashok Leyland Nissan Vehicles Ltd., said, “The JV is moving forward at full throttle now although we had been forced to slow down a bit during the recessionary phase last year. The Indian LCV segment has witnessed very robust growth over the past decade and by joining our complementary forces, we have created synergies to launch our products for this market on schedule – just 3 years after the formation of the JV.”

Also speaking at the occasion, Dr. V Sumantran, Executive Vice Chairman, Hinduja Automotive Ltd. and Chairman, Nissan Ashok Leyland Powertrain Ltd., said, “Within this JV, we have endeavoured to utilize our learnings relative to customer and market needs and taking forward the best Indian traditions of Indian frugal enterprise. The JV benefits from blending these factors together with Nissan’s long heritage of top-class engineering and quality orientation. We have closely observed changes in market dynamics, the greater role for intra-city and last mile goods distribution and rapidly evolving customer expectations. We feel our products, born out of the JV’s cost conscious quality orientation coupled with the substantial advancement of product technologies, will help us deliver very competitive value to our customers,” he added.

The flagship offering from this stable will be the contemporary, feature-rich F24 platform that will feature trucks and buses in the 5–7.5 tonne GVW (Gross Vehicle Weight) range. These vehicles will be powered by an efficient, proven 3-litre, 4-cylinder Common Rail Diesel engine which would be BS III and BS IV compliant.

The partners emphasized that they were on course with their plans, which in Phase I would see production emerge from Hosur and Oragadam. They also reiterated their expectation to execute Phase II. The overall scale of the enterprise has seen no change and, in fact, both parent companies have been in discussion with potential future product extensions.
The partners also clarified that they will continue with their original plan of bringing their range of vehicles to the market leveraging the Ashok Leyland and Nissan brands, through their respective dealer networks. Likewise, the JV continues to examine certain specific export markets in addition to the Indian market.

[fx45]

Ashok Leyland and Nissan Motor Company announced at a press meeting in Chennai that their joint venture to manufacture and market a range of light commercial vehicles (LCVs) is on track and will roll out three new products starting mid-2011.

While two will be manufactured at Leyland’s facilities at Hosur, the third will roll out of Nissan’s plant at Oragadam. Dr. Andy Palmer, senior vice president, Nissan Motor Company and chairman, Ashok Leyland Nissan Vehicles said, “The Indian LCV segment has witnessed very robust growth over the past decade and by joining our complementary forces, we have created synergies to launch our products for this market on schedule – just three years after the formation of the JV.” Dr. V Sumantran, executive vice chairman, Hinduja Automotive and chairman, Nissan Ashok Leyland Powertrain Ltd., said, “We have endeavoured to utilise our learnings relative to customer and market needs and taking forward the best Indian traditions of Indian frugal enterprise.”

The flagship offering from this stable will be based on the F24 platform that will feature both trucks and buses in the 5–7.5 tonne GVW (Gross Vehicle Weight) range. These vehicles will be powered by a 3-litre, 4-cylinder Common Rail Diesel engine which will be BS III and BS IV compliant.



source Autocar Professional

Auto Car Pro

[DicKy]

No othe further new about the vehicles?
Searched through net but news or reviews about the F24 are scarce.

[volkman10]

Ashok Leyland cancels small car project.

"The Hinduja Group owned company was developing a small car with its joint venture partner, Nissan but has now called it quits"

Cheers!

Ashok Leyland Cancels Small Car Project | MotorBeam - Indian Car Bike News & Reviews

[ghodlur]

The reasons for the exit of the small car attempt as given in the article are absolutely true. The Indian car manufacturers do have a herd mentality, they jump the bandwagon to be in the competition and when things hot up they jump off leaving the space for someone else to give it a shot.

Does this mean that the JV is off too? Apart from small car what else was expected from the JV?

[Zed]

Does this mean that the JV is off too? Apart from small car what else was expected from the JV?[/quote]

The first product of the JV is the 'Dost' Small commercial vehicle (SCV) - have not seen it in the flesh but looks hideous in print. One certainly has to hope that it has a good VFM quotient. We can expect more launches in the LCV segment from the JV. Apart from manufacturing and sales there are two other stand alone JVs for R&D and Engine manufacturing between the two companies.

While AL has a strong presence in the Bus and M&HCV space, it has not fared too well in the LCV segment - inspite of the now defunct JV with Iveco which saw the launch of the Cargo range of L&ICV's which did not really set the sales charts on fire.

The JV with Nissan is ALs second attempt to gain business in the LCV segment. Nissan has products in this segment that are tried and tested in many different geographies.

[volkman10]

Nissan's small car with Ashok Leyland to hit market by 2014!

"Japanese car maker Nissan will launch an entry-level small car, developed in partnership with Ashok Leyland, by 2014 that could be priced around Rs 2 lakh to Rs 4 lakh."

Nissan's small car with Ashok Leyland to hit market by 2014 - The Economic Times

[Ashley2]

Originally Posted by volkman10

Nissan's small car with Ashok Leyland to hit market by 2014!

"Japanese car maker Nissan will launch an entry-level small car, developed in partnership with Ashok Leyland, by 2014 that could be priced around Rs 2 lakh to Rs 4 lakh."

Nissan's small car with Ashok Leyland to hit market by 2014 - The Economic Times

The news is a kind of ambiguity.I think this is about Stile a MPV as against a passenger car.

[volkman10]

Originally Posted by Ashley2

The news is a kind of ambiguity.I think this is about Stile a MPV as against a passenger car.

Reports indicate this is a small passenger car projects.

"This is not the first time Nissan and Ashok Leyland have partnered on a project. The Dost LCV and the Stile MPV are proven examples to show these companies are working well together."

Nissan working with AshLey on a small car?

[Ashley2]

Why should Nissan partner with Ashokleyland to develop a car?
What is the expertise will Ashokleyland provide in this?
Except the newly formed Network, there is very much limited experience that can be shared by Ashokleyland.
If this is going to be a learning exercise, then AL will learn more than its Partner.

Also AL has better positioned itself as CV players with better margins and need not struggle itself getting into highly crowded PC segment with thin margins.

Earlier situation was still bad, when Nissan announced their intention to source a low cost car which will be developed by Bajaj and will be sold by Nissan. I am quite sure that's what has come out as RE60. If not with the power train the looks and features would never be changed. Better Nissan has come out of that.

IMO,Nissan could develop a small car of its own and may even launch under two variants under Renault and Nissan, in India and other markets.

[andromeda]

Looking at the products coming out/targeted by this JV, I believe that Nissan is playing it's cards pretty well. They would like to compete with the Tatas head-on, but WITHOUT the image problem Tata has got into itself in (Vista & Manza are suffering because of their brand association to their taxi cousins ).

Nissan is planning to have different branding for the private & commercial segment. They want all private buyers to go for the 'Nissan' branded products (Micra, Sunny, Evalia, etc..) and AL brand to cater to the commercial/fleet segment (Dost, Stile, heavy trucks, upcoming Nissan-AL small car which I presume will be coming only in the diesel avatar targeted solely at the Indicab, etc...).

[volkman10]

AL to help Datsun in low cost car!

Financial Chronicle carried a report that Nissan has roped in Ashok Leyland’s associate company Defiance Technologies for the design and development of the Datsun range of cars for the Indian market.

The low cost car developed by Defiance would not be a global car but would be tailored for the Indian audience at the same time meeting Nissan global standards for safety and quality

Ashok Leyland to help Datsun develop low cost cars

[Zed]

The article states very clearly that Defiance technologies is part of the project as a contractual engineering services provider and not as a JV or technical partner.

Though Defiance may have limited experience related to Pascars, its core competency - design - honed over the years by working for\with AL (among other customers I assume) can certainly be harnessed to develop a low cost passenger vehicle. Specially since the customer - Nissan - has the necessary pascar expertise to define what is expects out of the service provider.

[volkman10]

Evalia’s Sister Ashok Leyland Stile under test. Launch expected this year

The car which was camouflaged and these pics reveal that Ashok Leyland is on the roads testing their Stile, which is nothing but a rebadged version of Nissan Evila.
Stile is a more basic version of Evalia which will be sold under Ashok Leyland’s badge in India. It will be a cheaper alternate to Evalia and will definitely find preference in the commercial taxi operations. A few features will be traded off and a CNG version along with a parcel van version are also on the cards

http://motorbash.com/mb-xclusive-eva...t-camouflaged/

[Power House]

To launch Stile this year, it should be manufactured somewhere. As yet, it is assigned to the new plant coming at Oragadam, Chennai, whose construction works will not be over anytime soon.

Anyone with better knowhow can update.