Rane TRW Steering Systems, the 50:50 joint venture between the Chennai-based Rane Group and TRW Inc, which manufactures safety products like seatbelts and airbags, has bagged an export order worth Rs 100 crore for seatbelts from Hyundai Korea. This is the first supply order for the company from the Korean carmaker.

This is considered to be a major order for the company considering the high quality levels and cost competitiveness that Hyundai expects from its suppliers. It is understood that Rane TRW worked almost a year on this order and secured the mandate two months ago. The start of production for the Hyundai order is December 2016.

In India, Rane TRW’s Occupant Safety Division, which manufactures seatbelts and airbags, caters to key customers including Ashok Leyland, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles, Renault Nissan, Ford India, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki India, Tata Motors. The company exports nearly 15 percent of its volumes to Renault Brazil, Colombia and Thailand.  

Speaking to Autocar Professional, B Ayyappan, senior vice-president, Occupant Safety Division, Rane TRW Safety Systems, said: “Hyundai Korea’s order size is close to Rs 100 crore and this clearly underlines our quality, cost competitiveness, delivery and technology.”

The order is for the latest technology seatbelts from Rane TRW to be used in Hyundai’s passenger cars for the domestic market in Korea. The total volume of the order is around 1 million units and the order lifecycle will be more than 3 years from start of production. The delivery of the prototype production is slated to start soon.

Rane TRW currently manufactures 2.4 million units of retractor seatbelts, pre-tensioner seatbelt, seat-mounted self-aligning seatbelts and child restraint seatbelts per annum. In 2016, the company plans to introduce SPR4 pre-tensioner seatbelts with an efficient, reduced packaging size and weight reduction up to 10 percent. With these new products, production capacity will be expanded to 3 million units per annum.