Alpha scooter first to roll out from Yamaha’s new Chennai plant

India Yamaha Motor’s upcoming new manufacturing plant at Chennai, that  will go on stream this November, will likely begin production with the Alpha scooter launched at the Auto Expo 2014 in February.

The scooter is powered by a four-stroke, 113cc, single-cylinder, air-cooled engine which develops 7bhp at 7500rpm and maximum torque of 0.82kgm at 5000rpm.

Yamaha is targeting sales of around 200,000 units of the Alpha which is currently being produced at the company’s Surajpur plant in Greater Noida.  It will subsequently be manufactured at both the Surajpur and Chennai plants.

The company’s FZ series motorcycles that recently saw a refresh with Yamaha’s new Blue Core engine technology that offers additional fuel efficiency of 14 percent and launched as FZ version 2.0 and FZ-S version 2.0 are also prospective candidates for becoming the first motorcycles to roll out from the southern facility.

In an exclusive interview with Autocar Professional in Chennai earlier this month,  Masaki Asano, CEO and managing director, Yamaha Motor India Sales, said that it is yet to be decided whether the old version or the new edition FZ series bikes would be produced there. “In September-October, we will talk about future models and the ones that will be made in North and South India, and whether they will be old or new models,” he clarified.

The FZ16 series, introduced in India in 2008, has sold a total of 770,000 units till end-May 2014.The existing FZ series bikes average sales of 18,000 units a month; the new FZ version 2.0 is expected to notch 24,000 units a month sales.

Masaki has also indicated that a replica of an all-women assembly line, similar to the one at the Surajpur plant, is under consideration. “We do hope and want an all-women line here but this is not yet fixed as manufacturing is taken up by a different company. But we are focused on women, so maybe the same concept will be followed at Chennai,” he said.

Once the Chennai facility becomes operational, it will expand India Yamaha Motor’s total production capacity to 2.8 million units per annum.

In 2013-14, the company sold a total of 484,492 two-wheelers, posting growth of 33.53 percent. On the export front, it shipped 194,764 units, a growth of 46.69 percent. In the current fiscal, from April-June, it has sold a cumulative 139,500 units, marking a YoY increase of 32.22 percent; the three-month period has seen exports of 45,974 units.

IYM posted a growth of 32 percent between January to May 2014 and is optimistic of maintaining its growth momentum this year.