Tata Motors plans new bus platform

Tata Motors plans to create a new platform to manufacture buses utilising the latest technologies available with Hispano of Spain and Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company (TDCV) of Korea.

The new platform is to create a globally uniform bus, said Ravi Kant, managing director, Tata Motors. Ravi Kant was addressing the media to announce the company's results for the third quarter ended December 31, 2005.

The company would invest substantially in Hispano's Casablanca (Morocco) unit, which has received substantial orders for buses from various North African countries, including Morocco.

Tata Motors is planning to spend about Rs 1,000 crore over the next three years in terms of product development and expansion in commercial vehicles and passenger car segments.

Tata Motors has reported a 10 per cent growth in the sales of its commercial vehicles to 56,077 units for the quarter ended December 31, 2005 compared with 50,908 units a year ago.

The growth is on account of good performance from the light commercial vehicle (LCV) segment, which grew by 35 per cent, on account of better sales of Ace. The medium and heavy commercial Vehicle (MHCV) sales declined by 1.8 per cent.

"The flat sales in commercial vehicles is because of a combination of factors like sudden changes in the highway development programme of the government, higher freight rates, and increase in the prices of raw materials like steel," said Ravi Kant.

On the passenger vehicle front, Tata Motors and Fiat will jointly distribute each others cars. "Initially a joint network of 30 dealers initially would sell Fiat cars across major metros and mini metros," said Rajiv Dube, head-commercial car business.