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Nissan plans to manufacture diesel engines in India in the coming year so that most of the components of its products will be manufactured in the country. The chief finance officer at Nissan Motors India Pvt. Ltd, Mr. Sunil Rekhi informed yesterday that “We plan to make diesel engines at our plant here so that the level of localization of all our vehicles goes up to 80 percent. The investment in the diesel plant will be part of our overall investment of around Rs.4,500 crore.” He added the production line of the plant is quite flexible and so the company need not do any major investment. The company might consider exporting these diesel engines in the future.

The Japanese auto major had set up a manufacturing unit at Oragadam, located near Chennai. This plant has been set up in alliance with its global partner, Renault, a French auto company, and the plant has a capacity to produce about 200,000 units per year.

Nissan started making petrol engines for its cars in May 2010. It currently manufactures 1.2L and 1.5L engines at Oregadom along with Micra and Sunny.

The company had planned to make an investment of about 4,500 crore over a period of seven years but it hoped to achieve its target much before that time. Reikhi said that the company hopes that by the end of this financial year, it would have achieved about 80 percent of its target sale and by the next year, they plan to double this number. He added that “We will be launching diesel variant of our Sunny model early next year and also increase our dealerships to 70 by the end of this fiscal from the current 44 units.”

In a move to attract customers, Nissan has also made alliance with the public sector bank, State Bank of India to provide finance to customers who buy Nissan cars. The bank offers car loans to customers at the rate of 11.75 percent (fixed) and 11.2 percent (floating).

According to the chief general manager of Personal Banking, Rajeev Nandan Mehra, SBI has the cheapest rates of car loans and is the second largest financial institute to provide car loans in the country. He added that “We are proud to be associated with Nissan which is known for innovation and excitement. We are sure the innovative finance options worked out by SBI will bring a lot of cheer and excitement to Nissan customers and would translate into more vehicle delivery at the market place. We are looking forward to working with Nissan in the years to come.”

Mr. Reikhi observed that by tying up with SBI, its customers will be able to make its products “more accessible” and they will have better “flexible finance options to suit all budgets”. Thus it seems that the company is gearing up to face the challenges posed by the current times.