The Occupant Safety Division of Rane TRW Steering Systems, the 50:50 joint venture between the Rane Group and ZF TRW, has opened an airbag manufacturing plant located adjacent to its seatbelt plant near Chennai. The seatbelt plant began operations in 1997.

The spanking new plant located close to key customer Ford India, also supplies to Mahindra & Mahindra. Supplies will soon start to Renault-Nissan Automotive India.

The Rs 18 crore airbag plant, spread across 1,800 square metres, will assemble driver and passenger airbag modules. The plant will have an installed capacity to produce around 500,000 airbags; capacity will gradually be scaled up to a million airbags in the next two years. 

Speaking about the new plant, Harish Lakshman, managing director, Rane TRW, said, “With the government promoting occupant safety and road safety to significantly reduce fatalities, we expect the auto industry in the country to introduce passive safety technologies to meet these regulations. We anticipate exponential growth in the application of frontal airbags over the next decade and Rane TRW will be well positioned to support both global and domestic OEMs located in India to bring in these technologies to their vehicles.”

As per the government’s mandatory norms, from October 2017 onwards every new passenger car model launched in the country will have to be equipped with driver and passenger airbags. Currently, only about 30 percent of the cars sold in India have airbags; it is estimated that after October 2017, nearly 50 percent cars sold in India will have airbags and the number will touch 100 percent by 2020.

In India, Rane TRW’s Occupant Safety Division, which manufactures seatbelts and airbags, caters to key customers including Ford India, Renault Nissan, Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki India, Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, and Daimler India Commercial Vehicles. The company exports nearly 15 percent of its seatbelt volumes to Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam and Thailand. The seatbelts division has an installed capacity of 3 million seatbelts with utilisation levels of 70-75 percent.     

The Rane TRW JV, which has two divisions -- steering gear and occupant safety – operates from five manufacturing locations. The company also  manufactures steering gear for commercial vehicles in India. New business is coming its way from new vehicle platforms; 70 percent of revenue comes from steering gear division and 30 percent from the occupant safety division.