India Appears to Be The Hottest Market Nowadays for Automotive Investment

India appears to be the hottest market nowadays for automotive investment, with the latest company to break ground on a new assembly facility and engine plant being Ford Motor (Detroit). The $900 million complex will be located in the Sanand automotive cluster, where Peugeot (Paris, France) recently announced its intention to build an assembly facility. The new Ford manufacturing facility will create 5, 000 jobs, and will be able to initially produce 240, 000 vehicles and 270, 000 fuel-efficient engines per year. The first vehicles and engines are scheduled to come off the line in 2014. The investment will "help us reach the goal of increasing worldwide sales by nearly 50 percent by MID-decade to 8 million vehicles per year, " said Joe Hinrichs, president, Ford Asia Pacific and Africa. Last year Ford announced that it will bring eight new vehicles to India by MID-decade, the first one being the All-New Fiesta, which was launched in July. The new engine plant represents one of several new investments that Ford has made to support its aggressive expansion plan in India and throughout the globe. Earlier this year, Ford announced an investment of $72 million by 2012 to expand its already operating powertrain facility in Chennai. Ford's total investment in India to date is valued at approximately $2 billion. Another automaker investing more in India is Toyota Motor (Aichi, Japan), which announced in July that its local production and sales subsidiary Toyota Kirloskar Motor would almost double assembly capacity at its plants in Bangalore from the current 160, 000 units to 310, 000 units by early 2013. One of the plants manufactures the made-for-India Etios sedan and Etios Liva hatchback, which are compact cars developed specifically for the Indian market. This plant's capacity is being raised from the current 80, 000 units to 210, 000 units. Source: Plasticsinfomart. com