Renault Nissan plant to shut for maintenance purposes

The shutdown is part of a bi-annual scheduled maintenance plan

Renault Nissan Automotive India (RNAIPL) has announced its car manufacturing plant at Oragadam town, 55 km south of Chennai, will be closed for a week because of planned annual maintenance.

The shutdown will begin on May 22. Maintenance is carried out twice a year — May and December — at the plant.

RNAIPL reached the production milestone of a million cars at the start of 2016.

Recently, the plant started a third production shift in response to strong demand for its current line-up, including Renault’s Kwid and to prepare for upcoming models, including Datsun redi-GO, which will hit the market next month.

This is the first dedicated Alliance global plant.

With investment of Rs 4,500 crore over seven years, the plant has the capacity to produce 480,000 units per year at full ramp up.

The Renault-Nissan Alliance announced its plans to build a new manufacturing plant in Chennai, by signing of a memorandum of understanding with Tamil Nadu on 22 February, 2008.

The official ground-breaking ceremony took place in 2008 and the production started in May 2010. The first vehicle produced at the plant was the Nissan Micra, a hatchback.