Chennai, Oct 1 (IANS) In a business derisking strategy, the US-based Tenneco Inc, maker of emission control devices and shock absorbers for cars, is looking at the light and heavy commercial vehicles segment in India.
‘We are in talks with commercial vehicles manufacturers, including Ashok Leyland-Nissan joint venture that plans to roll out light commercial vehicles,’ Tenneco India’s Managing Director Abhijit Mukherjee told IANS here Friday.
He said the company had been supplying emission control components to some tractor companies in India and was trying to enter non-car making factories.
Tenneco opened a new facility near here Thursday, taking its number of plants to seven in India.
The new plant will supply emission control systems to Nissan’s global car Micra and modular assembled struts and shock absorbers to Ford India.
According to Mukherjee, Tenneco India has invested around $20 million on its seven plants.
Earlier, Tenneco’s global Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Gregg M. Sherill said: ‘The company is now focusing on diesel fuelled vehicles like commercial and off highway vehicles (earthmoving equipments and tractors).’
‘We would like to increase the revenue share from commercial vehicles to around 25 percent from the current seven percent.’
Ruling out any major threat to the company’s products by battery powered cars, called electric vehicles (EV), that obviate the need for emission control components, Sherill said: ‘Aggressive estimates put the total volume of EV at 10 percent of the global car capacity by 2020 and our estimate is five percent.’
‘We don’t see any threat from EV,’ he said, adding that the company was now focusing on commercial vehicles powered by diesel.
Asked about Tenneco not supplying its products to South Korean auto makers, he said: ‘The Korean companies take their own component suppliers where ever they go. However, we will be supplying to Hyundai Motors in China soon.’
