[Aditya]

Tata Motors has announced that it will start assembling vehicles in Tunisia with its partner, ICAR S.A., the industrial subsidiary of Le Motor SA. The company will assemble Tata Xenon pickups and light commercial vehicles, Ace and Super Ace.

The Tata Xenon is powered by a 2.2-litre, 4-cylinder diesel engine, capable of producing 138 BHP. It has a 9 blade leaf spring suspension set-up at the rear. The vehicle is equipped with air-conditioning, power steering, alarm, power windows and power mirrors. Tata Motors will offer 3 variants of the pickup - Single Cab 4x2 and Double Cab in the 4x2 and 4x4 configurations.



With the Tata Super Ace and Tata Ace, Tata Motors will try to get a foothold in the small utility segment in the country, with several application based vehicles for small businesses.

The distribution of Tata Motors vehicles and after-sales service will be provided by Le Motor SA, and the products will be available throughout Tunisia starting from September 2015.

[GTO]

In a way, this highlights the problem with Tata Motors = Too many distractions leading to a lack of focus and waste of managerial talent.

The Tunisia market is good for merely 50,000 sales / annum (what India does in a week). The biggest car maker there - Citroen - has sales of 5,600 units a year (source).

Tata Motors is already present in innumerable segments...large trucks to small goods carriers and everything in between, Jaguar Land-Rover, economy hatchbacks & sedans, UVs and more. Why spend precious resources on local assembly in a country with such a small market?

Trim your to-do list, sharpen your focus, do lesser things but do them really well. Else, Tata Motors will just continue to spread itself too thin.

[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by GTO

In a way, this highlights the problem with Tata Motors = Too many distractions leading to a lack of focus and waste of managerial talent.

The Tunisia market is good for merely 50,000 sales / annum (what India does in a week). The biggest car maker there - Citroen - has sales of 5,600 units a year (source).

Tata Motors is already present in innumerable segments...large trucks to small goods carriers and everything in between, Jaguar Land-Rover, economy hatchbacks & sedans, UVs and more. Why spend precious resources on local assembly in a country with such a small market?

Trim your to-do list, sharpen your focus, do lesser things but do them really well. Else, Tata Motors will just continue to spread itself too thin.

I'm curious - it may have something to do with taxation - e.g assembling in Tunisia may help in sales of the vehicles elsewhere in Africa. Assembly locations are optimized often for taxation and not just local markets.

[Autolock123]

If we see the the African continent and the automotive sales, majority of it is the sale is of pre owned vehicles, vehicles imported from US, Europe and Middle East. The sale of new vehicles are minuscule.

Then why does operations in Tunisia makes sense-
Strategic location - Proximity to Europe
Country's policy- Automotive industry forms 10% of its GDP and manufacturing for export is a priority for country (Country offers exemption on customs duties, VAT and consumption tax for company's activities) and offers lot of incentives to set up a manufacturing base in country
Presence of Suppliers - Companies like Bosch, Valeo, Lear are already present
Labor Cost - 3000 USD per annum as against more than 10K USD per annum in European countries
Country is also ranked second in Africa in terms of Quality of living.