Visteon to come up new mfg unit in India; sets sight on West and North

Visteon Corporation, a US-based automotive cockpit electronic systems maker, has said that it is planning to come up with a second manufacturing unit in India targeting the Western and Northern India.

This is in addition to the expansion plans at its existing manufacturing unit in Chennai. “We are contemplating about looking at a second plant in India, where we will have the advantage of geographic proximity to the customers in the western belt or the northern belt,” said Aashish Bhatia, vice president and general manager, Visteon. According to the media reports, Visteon Corporation is planning to start manufacturing automotive displays at its Chennai unit in 2023. The company supplies automotive cockpit electronic systems, including instrument clusters, infotainment systems, and sensors to original equipment manufacturers.

When asked about the plans to invest $20 million to set up a display panel facility, the company said that it will have more capacity in place by the first quarter of the next year. The company is looking at installing the display unit with a capacity of close to about 1 million units per year. Bhatia said that the company did not see any major slowdown during the pandemic other than the first four to five months.

“I did not see a slowdown of demand for vehicles from the customers and the number of launches in the last 18 months. We did not see a slowdown in the investments that the OEMs are making in terms of starting up new programs,” he said, while adding that the chip shortage has affected the industry more than the pandemic. “That is what has really dampened a little bit on the potential of revenue that we could have realized otherwise,” Bhatia added. The company indicated that artificial intelligence is going to play a major role in terms of improving the passenger experience going ahead.