[coolrain]

Last September I visited the HR guys a couple of times at the Passenger Car Unit which is at the opposite end of the Main Gate. It rained very heavily that day. Upon reaching the entry I was told 'only Tata cars allowed inside saar'. Luckily I managed to find some parking space near the gate & rushed inside.
The plant is situated on a huge plot of land. A wide road runs from the PC Unit Gate till the Main Gate with buildings on both sides. A Footpath runs along both the sides with Intersections, clearly marked Zebra crossings & even a Traffic Signal at the junction! You are supposed to walk on the footpath & cross the road on the Zebra crossing only. No jay-walking is allowed.
The HR Office is a few meters from the Gate. The exteriors & the interiors remind you of the 80's. Cabinets, Tables, Furniture, even the Flooring could be compared to a Government Office except for the fact that nothing was broken or damaged. The interiors, though spacious, definitely felt old when compared to modern day offices.

[i74js]

TML has fair amount of infrastructure for production of good cars; I am unable to understand what is stopping them from capturing the market. They can well be close to Hyundai in India. If I compare them with Hyundai
- Dealership & Outreach - more or less same
- Entry in Indian market - same time (1998 onwards Santro vs Indica)
- Product range - Hyundai has a slight advantage
- Production facilities - Hyundai has two production facilities with annual output of 630,000. I am not sure but with Gujarat facility in operation, Tatas should be close / higher than Hyundai
- Engine production - Tata has an advange for inhouse petrol + diesel engines and tie up with Fiat for Quadrajet. Hyundai is importing diesel motors though they will soon have a flexible setup to produce diesel + petrol motors in India
- Product quality - Hyundai has definite advantage, Tata is struggling for quality of their products
- International presence - Hyundai is ahead of Tata's as JLR is still an independent premium brand and is not sold under one roof with TML products
- Management - I am not sure, but it seems that Tata management has not "arrived" as yet. Their sleeves are not up and belts are not tight enough. Karl needs to work a bit hard to turn around the organization.

[yogibear007]

Originally Posted by i74js

TML has fair amount of infrastructure for production of good cars; I am unable to understand what is stopping them from capturing the market. They can well be close to Hyundai in India.

True. Traditionaly TML's been mainly a one product company in the passanger car segment actually if you check their sales history. It was Sumo at one point, then Indica, then Ape etc etc. The driving force behind these were the continuous pushing for excellence and improvement from the top i.e. the likes of Mr Ratan Tata himself. I guess the push probably has slakened a little bit with Nano debacle not helping much in boosting the morale and risk appetite. Else, TML sure is a greate fighting machine. They have proved it ample times in the past. Lets hope they pick it up this time too before its too late...

[MaxTorque]

Originally Posted by yogibear007

True. Traditionaly TML's been mainly a one product company in the passanger car segment actually if you check their sales history. It was Sumo at one point, then Indica, then Ape etc etc.

I think you meant Tata Ace.

Anyways In my opinion in the past, Indian companies were very conservative in making investments in R&D. So they fell behind other Global players. Honda and some of the known names in Indian automotive business started operation in same period. Now we know where Honda is. Another reason could be our "chalta hai" attitude and "jugad" culture. Also now customers are looking for products with brand value attached to it. Which again makes Indian players task a difficult one.

[yogibear007]

Originally Posted by MaxTorque

I think you meant Tata Ace.

Anyways In my opinion in the past, Indian companies were very conservative in making investments in R&D. So they fell behind other Global players. Honda and some of the known names in Indian automotive business started operation in same period. Now we know where Honda is. Another reason could be our "chalta hai" attitude and "jugad" culture. Also now customers are looking for products with brand value attached to it. Which again makes Indian players task a difficult one.

Thanks MaxTorque for the correction. It is indeed Tata Ace
But one does wonder what has really happened at TML which is causing almost a complete lull on the new product front. Probably something big is cooking inside. I sure hope so. Especially after the Jaguar association, TML folks would be well aware of the results of the R&D expense slice in the total ops budget pie. Companies like M&M are doing great on new product front as well as varients with slice & dice of the existing set of models which is keeping their numbers afloat in a fierce market .
Anybody heard of anything being developed/thought of on a completely new product front at TML ?

[Dhruv Shetty]

I have seen these machines in operations , and I have used them.

[vinay kamath]

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/...-ford-jlr.html

'Humiliated' Tata 'favoured' Ford with JLR buyout

Mumbai, Mar 15, 2015, (PTI):


Ratan Tata and his team faced "humiliation" when they went to sell the group's fledgling car business to Ford in 1999, but came back to "do a big favour" just nine years later by taking over the American giant's marquee brands Jaguar and Land Rover.

"They told us 'you do not know anything, why did you start the passenger car division at all'. They said they will do us a favour by buying our car division," a Tata Group veteran said while recalling a meeting of Ratan Tata and other top executives with Ford officials in Detroit in 1999.

The Tata Motors team decided to return to New York the same evening and Ratan Tata, then the group chairman, was sombre throughout the 90-minute flight, said Pravin Kadle, who was part of the team at that time and now heads Tata Capital.
"This was in 1999 and come 2008, the same Ford's JLR was bought by us. Ford chairman Bill Ford thanked Tata, saying 'you are doing us a big favour by buying JLR'," Kadle said, to a thunderous applause at an awards function on Thursday night.

He was speaking, mostly in Marathi, after receiving the YB Chavan National Award 2014 on behalf of Ratan Tata, who is now Chairman Emeritus of the over USD 100-billion group.

The poor response to its maiden hatchback Indica had driven Tata Motors to sell the car business, within a year of its debut in 1998, to Ford Motor.

"Some people advised chairman Ratan Tata to sell the passenger car division following the poor response it got post launch. Ford officials came down to our headquarters Bombay House and evinced interest in our car business.

"We were called to Detroit for discussions and I accompanied the chairman. For nearly three hours, we discussed the sell-off with Ford officials but were meted out humiliating treatment," said Kadle, who played a major role in the turnaround and growth of Tata Motors.
During his tenure at Tata Motors, Kadle was part of the senior leadership team that managed the cross-border acquisitions like Daewoo of South Korea, Incat Technologies of the UK and eventually of Jaguar-Land Rover of UK.
Nine years after the 'humiliation', the clock turned a full circle and the salt-to-software conglomerate humbled the mighty Ford -- which was on the verge of bankruptcy after the 2008 global financial meltdown -- by taking over the iconic Jaguar Land-Rover brands for USD 2.3 billion, Kadle recalled.

Within a few years of the buyout, JLR made a dramatic turnaround and is the mainstay of Tata Motors' finances now.

Kadle, who has been with the group for 21 years, said the driving factor for Tata in the Indica project was to launch the country's first indigenously designed car from scratch.
The ambitious car was not a commercial success in first few years and it was suggested to sell the passenger vehicles vertical, Kadle said.

[rrsteer]

Originally Posted by vinay kamath

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/...-ford-jlr.html


The poor response to its maiden hatchback Indica had driven Tata Motors to sell the car business, within a year of its debut in 1998, to Ford Motor.

The response was not poor at all. It garnered more than 100,000 bookings at the time of launch. Post launch execution though is a different matter.

[directinjection]

Originally Posted by vinay kamath

The poor response to its maiden hatchback Indica had driven Tata Motors to sell the car business, within a year of its debut in 1998, to Ford Motor.

Never heard that before. The response to the car definitely wasn't poor, in spite of Maruti's efforts to sabotage it by exercising its influence over vendors like Subros to commit default in supplying parts for Indica. As a result, initially, only the non-AC model of Indica was available; deliveries of AC versions got delayed. For a car whose production commenced in January 1999 to have produced a million units by November, 2007 one can't say the market response was poor.

If Tata was on the verge of selling its car business to Ford, how come no business newspaper or magazine reported it then? It would have made headlines! Also, if Ford had refused to buy, why didn't Tata talk to other manufacturers?

From The Hindu:

The company commenced production in January 1999. While it produced the 100,000th car in March 2001 and the 500,000th car in February 2005, the progression from the 900,000th car to the millionth car was achieved in just seven months.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper...cle1955251.ece