The new Ford Fiesta, which will be launched in India later this year...
Ford Motor Company has recently announced that it will invest US$72 million towards expanding its powertrain facility in Chennai, to further support its sales and export growth plans in India. When the expansion programme is completed in mid-2012, Ford’s engine plant will have a production capacity of 330,000 units per year, up from the current 250,000 units capacity.
‘This investment reinforces the importance of our Chennai plant and Ford's continued expansion in India. This expansion will allow us to provide more technologically advanced and fuel-efficient engines to our customers in India and in markets around the world where we export Chennai-built vehicles,’ says Michael Boneham, President and MD, Ford India. ‘The new investment also further supports our plan to introduce eight new global Ford vehicles in India by 2015. When the expansion is finished, a third production shift will be added at the engine assembly plant, creating more than 300 new direct jobs,’ he adds.
The new investment is part of Ford India's transformation into a major global export and manufacturing hub – soon, 1.6-litre and 1.4-litre petrol and diesel engines, built at Ford’s Maraimalai Nagar facility near Chennai, will be exported from India. Incidentally, this engine manufacturing facility was inaugurated in January 2010 and production hit the 100,000 units figure in March this year, just 14 months after operations commenced at this plant.
The Maraimalai Nagar plant is the first Ford facility in the world that features a single flexible production line where both petrol and diesel engines can be manufactured. The plant currently produces five ‘Duratec’ petrol engine variants and one ‘Duratorq’ diesel engine variant for Ford vehicles, and is also gearing up to produce powertrains for the all-new Fiesta sedan which will be launched in India later this year.
