Tata Motors warns of speed-breakers ahead

Tata Motors chairman Ratan Tata has warned that the company is driving into a rough patch.

"There will be an enormous and unprecedented increase in material costs in steel, tyres, and the like, and there will be the impact of tighter money supply with higher interest rates," Tata has said in the chairman's statement in the company's annual report for 2007-08.

He said the other major challenges would be to manage the completion of the Singur plant, introduction of Nano, the company's new low-cost car, and absorbing the cost of acquiring Jaguar and Land Rover. The two Ford brands were transferred to Tata Motors last month.

He pointed out that while Tata motors registered significant growth last financial year, it lost market share and was unable to exploit its full market potential due to inadequate deliveries of powertrains and components from major suppliers.

Nevertheless, Tata's statement remains sanguine. "The year ahead will be no more daunting than the challenges they (the people in Tata Motors) have faced in difficult years in the past