India’s largest and top most car maker Maruti Suzuki is shelling out Rs1000 crore for erecting a test track in Haryana. This will initiate the launch of 100% indigenous car for domestic market, by 2012 and innovative global car before 2014. The track will include R&D wing for making these cars. The company’s Marketing Executive Officer disclosed that the track is said to have been made with the design and the actual work may start sometime later this year. The project, in the 600 acre land in Haryana(allotted by the state government) may be completed in a period of 18-24 months.
The team of this R&D comprises a battalion of 1000 engineers, who have been toiling their effort since the launch of Swift since 2005. They are exposed to the technological expertise from the company’s apex wing in Japan. The team will get an additional 100 engineers to extend help and cooperation for the project track. The project’s early initiatives included the launches of WagonR [images] and the recent Alto K10, he mentioned. Soon, there will be new launches on CNG version for 5 models along with the ensuing Khizashi.
The company foresees an imminent growth in the coming quarter by increasing the sale volume by 10-14%. This, the company said, will be achieved by enhancing the production and manufacturing efficiencies. Everything will come to a smooth pedaling once the Manesar facility gets additional production capacity, probably next year. Maruti’s sale task in 2009 was more than one million including the export figure of 1.4 lakhs. The company projects similar volume for this quarter despite the fall in the export to Europe. The compensation in the export is viable by way of more export to South Africa market, to which the new Alto K10 [images] is targeted, he said.