No plans on electric cars for India: Nissan

Nissan Motor India has no immediate plans to come out with electric cars for Indian market, company Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Kiminobu Tokuyama said today.

Though the company has worked out designs for electric cars suitable for the UK and the US markets, there was no specific timeframe for the Indian market, Tokuyama told reporters at a press conference.

He added that there were no incentives from the Indian government and unless the company gets a specific signal from authorities, it would not venture into this.

The company, however, plans to increase its footprint in India by making the country a strategic base for production, sale and export of its products, he said.

Pointing out that the company has set a manufacturing and sales target of one lakh cars in India by 2013, he said that the firm would increase the capacity of its Chennai plant, which was commissioned last week, to 4 lakh cars per annum.

The facility was set up with an initial investment of Rs 2,900 crore with a capacity of 200,000 units that can be scaled up to 400,000 units. As per the Memorandum of Understanding with the Tamil Nadu government, the alliance will invest Rs 4,500 crore by 2015.

The unit has an employee strength of 1,500 people, which issan plans to take to over 3,000 in the next two years.

Asked about competition and product plans, Tokuyama said the company would line up nine models by 2012, of which five models would be produced in India and four would be imported from Japan. Besides, the company would export vehicles from India to over 100 countries like Europe, Middle East and Africa, he said.