Nissan Motors India Limited have very big plans of making it in the Indian market. That the company has been in India not long ago, since 2004 is a well known fact however not many would know that the company also has been partnering with Ashok Leyland and making trucks in India. This coalition by the company has been the most successful venture for them. Nissan Motors India Limited have launched both its small car, the Nissan Micra in its petrol version as well as the Nissan Micra diesel recently. Both these cars are runaway success inspite of their slightly high price. The diesel version has so far had about 2.300 bookings in only 2 weeks and deliveries would be done only in January 2011. Its petrol counterpart has registered about 7000 units since its launch 5 months ago. We also know that they are planning on launching new mid size sedan based on the Nissan Micra platform as also many SUVs. One of them is an all new compact SUV which would be based on the Dacia Duster H79 platform. The manufacturing process would be in the company’s facility in Oragadam plant in Chennai. This plant can produce about 15,000 units each year. Nissan has plans to first launch this car in India and then once demands pick up, export it to the other markets in the world, however mostly right hand ones.
Recently in conjuction with their plans, the company has signed two MoUs with the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. This is for comprehensive research in cooperation agreement to support the potential engineers. The Nissan Science foundation which aims to groom the talented students in India through the Nissan Foundation Scholar MoU. This agreement is valid till 2015 and aims to provide financial aid to those selected students. The program is to also give them a short training stint at the Nissan Motor headquarters in Japan. The next step would be to give them a 4 month long internship at the Renault-Nissan alliance R&D facility in Chennai.
Nissan Support Program is the second MoU was done keeping in aim the various Management, engineering, science, social sciences and the humanities aspect with the IIT Madras institute of Engineering. This MoU has been signed by Nissan’s own R&D center in India {RNTCBI} and the sole aim is to have a say in all the development projects and also support research details. The validity of this MoU is till March 2013. On this occasion, Director of Nissan Science Foundation as well as fellow head in Nissan Motor, Haruyoshi Kumura, said that there were couple of collaborative projects in conjuction with IIT Madras. This facilitates the Indian public as well since they can give them financial help and also be exposed to the culture in the Nissan world. There is also chance that a made for India electric vehicle on the lines of the Nissan Leaf would be developed soon. The MoU may just about facilitate it.