Indian automotive giant Tata Motors is planning a total rejuvenation and substantial expansion of its passenger car and SUV ranges, allied with a move into new markets including Australia.
The new models will start rolling out from 2014, some underpinned by a new modular architecture and all featuring a more expressive exterior design language.
These new cars, crossovers and SUVs will be seen in Australia, but not for at least two years. They will be distributed by Fusion Automotive, the Walkinshaw Group division which starts selling the Xenon light commercial vehicle in Australia from October.
The product overhaul and global push has been developed by new Tata Motors global boss Karl Slym as part of a plan dubbed Horizonext. His ambition is to eventually tackle global automotive leaders Toyota, Volkswagen and General Motors head-on.
“There is no reason (why not). We have the history, we have the capability and we have the heritage,” Slym told motoring.com.au during a media round-table at Tata’s massive Pune assembly plant and research and design centre in western India. “We feel very confident about the path forward.
“All of our product portfolio is approved out to 2020 and the international markets we expect to sell them in.”
The first evidence of Horizonext was a slew of updates of existing models six weeks ago, but new models featuring Tata’s new design language start appearing in the first quarter of 2014.
“We have a more aggressive roll-out plan in the first three years of Horizonext and after that we fall more into a cadence,” he said.
Slym, an Englishman who has spent much of his career working in India and China for GM and Toyota, was brought in to run Tata Motors in 2012. One of the jewels in the $100 billion-per annum Tata industrial empire, its fortunes in passenger cars had slumped in the Indian market with sales falling 29.2 per cent in the last financial year.
The commercial vehicle division has traditionally propped up the car divisions and Tata is the fourth biggest truck and bus manufacturer in the world. However, there has been a downturn in the Indian commercial vehicle segment, which has placed pressure on Tata Motors’ bottomline.
British prestige and luxury division Jaguar Land Rover – bought from Ford for $2.3 billion in 2008 -- provides 70 per cent of Tata Motors’ turn-over, 90 per cent of profit and 400,000 of the 450,000 vehicles the company sold beyond India in 2012.
“I have a majority of my sales in an Indian market which is not now in the best shape,” Slym admitted. “So you have the majority of your eggs in one basket. So our ambitions are to be global and we have the vehicle pipeline to be global.”
The Tata passenger car portfolio currently consists of the Nano micro, a group of B-segment sedans and hatches (the older Indica and Indigo and newer Vista and Manza), the Aria ladder-frame people-mover and the Safari and Storm heavy-duty SUVs.
Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Mahindra & Mahindra, Honda and even Renault have dragged market share from Tata as they roll out more modern small cars and compact SUVs. Tata hasn’t launched an all-new car since the Aria two years ago.
The development of Tata’s new and updated architectures and styling language is under the control of English engineer Dr Tim Everton, a veteran of Rover, Land Rover and BMW, for whom he served as chief engineer on the Rolls-Royce Phantom. He has been at Tata Motors for three years.
Slym said Tata’s move to energise design was a key part of the company’s product portfolio expansion.
“Our vehicles have been known for robustness, for spaciousness, for fuel economy, for reliability and durability and therefore they have been more focussed on the commercial side of the passenger car business, and I think our designs have also been conservative and therefore supported the way things go to the commercial side.
“This visual is probably not personal at the moment. Our intention is to make sure with this portfolio expansion that we keep the strengths that are supported by our commercial customers … but at the same time take this next step in design.”
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