Tata Motors Limited is an Indian multinational automotive manufacturing company headquartered
in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India and a subsidiary of the Tata Group. Its products include passenger
cars, trucks, vans, coaches, buses, construction equipment and military vehicles. It is the
world's seventeenth-largest motor vehicle manufacturing company, fourth-largest truck
manufacturer and second-largest bus manufacturer by volume.
Tata Motors has auto manufacturing and assembly plants in Jamshedpur, Pantnagar, Lucknow,
Sanand, Dharwad and Pune in India, as well as in Argentina, South Africa, Thailand and
the United Kingdom. It has research and development centres in Pune, Jamshedpur, Lucknow and Dharwad,
India, and in South Korea, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Tata Motors' principal subsidiaries
include the British premium car maker Jaguar Land Rover and the South Korean commercial
vehicle manufactuer Tata Daewoo. Tata Motors has a bus manufacturing joint venture with
Marcopolo S.A., a construction equipment manufacturing joint venture with Hitachi, and a joint venture
with Fiat which manufactures automotive components and Fiat and Tata branded vehicles.
Founded in 1945 as a manufacturer of locomotives, the company manufactured its first commercial
vehicle in 1954 in a collaboration with Daimler-Benz AG, which ended in 1969. Tata Motors entered
the passenger vehicle market in 1991 with the launch of the Tata Sierra, becoming the
first Indian manufacturer to achieve the capability of developing a competitive indigenous automobile.
In 1998, Tata launched the first fully indigenous Indian passenger car, the Indica, and in 2008
launched the Tata Nano, the world's most affordable car. Tata Motors acquired the South Korean
truck manufacturer Daewoo Commercial Vehicles Company in 2004 and purchased Jaguar Land
Rover from Ford in 2008. Tata Motors is listed on the Bombay Stock
Exchange, where it is a constituent of the BSE SENSEX index, the National Stock Exchange
of India and the New York Stock Exchange. Tata Motors is ranked 314th in the 2012 Fortune
Global 500 ranking of the world's biggest corporations.
History
Tata entered the commercial vehicle sector in 1945 after forming a joint venture with
Daimler-Benz of Germany. After years of dominating the commercial vehicle market in India, Tata
Motors entered the passenger vehicle market in 1991 by launching the Tata Sierra, a multi
utility vehicle. Tata subsequently launched the Tata Estate, a light commercial vehicle),
the Tata Sumo and the Tata Safari. Tata launched the Indica in 1998, the first
fully indigenous Indian passenger car. Although initially criticized by auto-analysts, its
excellent fuel economy, powerful engine and an aggressive marketing strategy made it one
of the best selling cars in the history of the Indian automobile industry. A newer version
of the car, named Indica V2, was a major improvement over the previous version and quickly became
a mass-favourite. Tata Motors also successfully exported large quantities of the car to South
Africa. The success of Indica played a key role in the growth of Tata Motors.
In 2004 Tata Motors acquired Daewoo's South Korea-based truck manufacturing unit, Daewoo
Commercial Vehicles Company, later renamed Tata Daewoo.
On 27 September 2004, Tata Motors rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange
to mark the listing of Tata Motors. In 2005, Tata Motors acquired a 21% controlling
stake in the Spanish bus and coach manufacturer Hispano Carrocera. Tata Motors continued its
market area expansion through the introduction of new products such as buses and trucks.
In 2006, Tata formed a joint venture with the Brazil-based Marcopolo, Tata Marcopolo
Bus, to manufacture fully built buses and coaches.
In 2008, Tata Motors acquired the British car maker Jaguar Land Rover, manufacturer
of the Jaguar, Land Rover and Daimler luxury car brands, from Ford Motor Company.
In May 2009 Tata unveiled the Tata World Truck range jointly developed with Tata Daewoo;
the range went in sale in South Korea, South Africa, the SAARC countries and the Middle-East
at the end of 2009. Tata acquired full ownership of Hispano Carrocera
in 2009. In 2009, its Lucknow plant was awarded the
"Best of all" Rajiv Gandhi National Quality Award.
In 2010, Tata Motors acquired an 80% stake in the Italian design and engineering company
Trilix for €1.85 million. The acquisition formed part of the company's plan to enhance
its styling and design capabilities. In 2012, Tata Motors announced it would invest
around 6 billion in the development of Futuristic Infantry Combat Vehicles in collaboration
with DRDO. In 2013, Tata Motors announced it will sell
in India, the first vehicle in the world to run on compressed air and dubbed "Mini CAT".
On 26 January 2014, the Managing Director Karl Slym was found dead. He fell from the
22nd floor to the 4th floor of the Shangri-La Hotel in Bangkok where he was to attend a
meeting of Tata Motors Thailand.. Operations
Tata Motors has vehicle assembly operations in India, the United Kingdom, South Korea,
Thailand, Spain and South Africa. It plans to establish plants in Turkey, Indonesia and
Eastern Europe. Tata Motors' principal subsidiaries include
Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Daewoo and Tata Hispano. Tata Motors Cars
Tata Motors Cars is a division of Tata Motors which produces passenger cars under the Tata
Motors marque. Tata Motors is among the top four passenger vehicle brands in India with
products in the compact, midsize car and utility vehicle segments. The company’s manufacturing
base in India is spread across Jamshedpur, Pune, Lucknow, Pantnagar, Dharwad and Sanand.
Tata's dealership, sales, service and spare parts network comprises over 3,500 touch points.
Tata Motors has more than 250 dealerships in more than 195 cities across 27 states and
4 Union Territories of India. It has the third largest sales and service network after Maruti
Suzuki and Hyundai. Tata also has franchisee/joint venture assembly
operations in Kenya, Bangladesh, Ukraine, Russia and Senegal. Tata has dealerships in
26 countries across 4 continents. Though Tata is present in many countries it has only managed
to create a large consumer base in the Indian Subcontinent, namely India, Bangladesh, Bhutan,
Sri Lanka and Nepal. Tata is also present in Italy, Spain, Poland, Romania, Turkey,
Chile, and South Africa. Tata Daewoo
Tata Daewoo is a commercial vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Gunsan, Jeollabuk-do, South
Korea and a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Motors. It is the second-largest heavy commercial
vehicle manufacturer in South Korea and was acquired by Tata Motors in 2004. The principal
reasons behind the acquisition were to reduce Tata's dependence on the Indian commercial
vehicle market and expand its product portfolio by leveraging on Daewoo's strengths in the
heavy-tonnage sector. Tata Motors has jointly worked with Tata Daewoo
to develop trucks such as Novus and World Truck and buses including GloBus and StarBus.
In 2012, Tata began developing a new line to manufacture competitive and fuel efficient
commercial vehicles to face the competition posed by the entry of international brands
like Mercedes-Benz, Volvo and Navistar into the Indian market.
Tata Hispano
Tata Hispano Motors Carrocera, S.A. was a bus and coach manufacturer based in Zaragoza,
Aragon, Spain and a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Motors. Tata Hispano has plants in
Zaragoza, Spain and Casablanca, Morocco. Tata Motors first acquired a 21% stake in Hispano
Carrocera SA in 2005, and purchased the remaining 79% for an undisclosed sum in 2009, making
it a fully owned subsidiary, subsequently renamed Tata Hispano. Over the end of 2013,
Tata Hispano closed the activity, due the bad management of Manchi Raja Rao, leaving
287 unemployed people and closing 70 years of history
Jaguar Land Rover
Jaguar Land Rover PLC is a British premium automaker headquartered in Whitley, Coventry,
United Kingdom and has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Motors since June 2008,
when it was acquired from Ford Motor Company. Its principal activity is the development,
manufacture and sale of Jaguar luxury and sports cars and Land Rover premium four wheel
drive vehicles. It also owns the currently dormant Daimler, Lanchester and Rover brands.
Jaguar Land Rover has two design centres and three assembly plants in the UK. Under Tata
ownership, Jaguar Land Rover has launched new vehicles including the Range Rover Evoque,
Jaguar F-Type, the Jaguar XF, the latest Jaguar XJ the Second-generation Range Rover Sport,
the Fourth-generation Land Rover Discovery and the fourth-generation Range Rover.
TML Drivelines TML Drivelines Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary
of Tata Motors engaged in the manufacture of gear boxes and axles for heavy and medium
commercial vehicles. It has production facilities at Jamshedpur and Lucknow. TML Forge division
is also a recent acquisition of TML Drivelines. TML Drivelines was formed through the merger
of HV Transmission and HV Axles. Tata Technologies
Tata Technologies Limited is an 86.91% owned subsidiary of Tata Motors which provides design,
engineering and business process outsourcing services to the automotive industry. It is
headquartered in Pune and also has operations in Detroit, London and Thailand. TTL's clients
include Ford, General Motors, Honda and Toyota. The British engineering and design services
company Incat International, which specialises in engineering and design services and product
lifecycle management in the automotive, aerospace and engineering sectors, is a wholly owned
subsidiary of TTL. It was acquired by TTL in August 2005 for 4 billion.
European Technical Centre The Tata Motors European Technical Centre
is an automotive design, engineering and research company based at WMG on the campus of the
University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. It was established in 2005 and is a wholly
owned subsidiary of Tata Motors. It was the joint developer of the World Truck.
In September 2013 it was announced that a new National Automotive Innovation Campus
would be built at WMG at Warwick's main campus at a cost of £100 million. The initiative
will be a partnership between Tata Motors, the University and Jaguar Land Rover, with
£30 million funding coming from Tata Motors. Joint ventures
Tata Marcopolo
Tata Marcopolo is a bus manufacturing joint venture between Tata Motors and the Brazil-based
Marcopolo S.A.. The joint venture manufactures and assembles fully built buses and coaches
targeted at developing mass rapid transportation systems. It utilises technology and expertise
in chassis and aggregates from Tata Motors, and know-how in processes and systems for
bodybuilding and bus body design from Marcopolo. Tata Marcopolo has launched a low-floor city
bus which is widely used by Chandigarh, Kolkata, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai,
Lucknow, Pune, Agra, Kochi, Trivandrum and Bengaluru transport corporations. Its manufacturing
facility is based in Dharwad. Fiat-Tata
Fiat-Tata is an India-based joint venture between Tata and Fiat which produces Fiat
and Tata branded passenger cars as well as engines and transmissions. Tata Motors has
gained access to Fiat’s diesel engine technology through the joint venture.
The two companies formerly also had a distribution joint venture through which Fiat products
were sold in India through joint Tata-Fiat dealerships. This distribution arrangement
was ended in March 2013, since when Fiats have been distributed in India by Fiat Automobiles
India Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fiat.
Tata Hitachi Construction Machinery
Tata Hitachi Construction Machinery is a joint venture between Tata Motors and Hitachi which
manufactures excavators and other construction equipment. It was previously known as Telcon
Construction Solutions. Products
For details of Tata Motors passenger cars, see Tata Motors Cars. For details of Land
Rover products, see Land Rover. For details of Jaguar products, see Jaguar Cars
Commercial vehicles
Tata Ace Tata Ace Zip
Tata Super Ace Tata TL207 DI Pickup Truck
Tata 407 Ex and Ex2 Tata 709 Ex
Tata 807 Tata 809 Ex and Ex2
Tata 909 Ex and Ex2 Tata 1109
Tata 1512 Tata 1612/1616
Tata 1618 Tata 1623
Tata 1518C 10 Ton Tata 1613/1615
Tata 2515/2516 Tata Starbus
Tata Divo Tata CityRide
Tata 3015 Tata 3118
Tata 3516 Tata 4018
Tata 4923 Tata Novus
Tata Prima Tata Prima LX
Tata Ultra Military vehicles
Tata LSV Tata Mine Protected Vehicle
Tata 2 Stretcher Ambulance Tata 407 Troop Carrier, available in hard
top, soft top, 4×4, and 4×2 versions Tata LPTA 713 TC
Tata LPT 709 E Tata SD 1015 TC
Tata LPTA 1615 TC Tata LPTA 1621 TC
Tata LPTA 1615 TC Tata Winger Passenger Mini Bus
Tata Landrover 1515 F TATA SUMO 4*4
TATA xenon Electric vehicles
Tata Motors has unveiled electric versions of the Tata Indica passenger car powered by
TM4 electric motors and inverters as well as the Tata Ace commercial vehicle, both of
which run on lithium batteries. The company has indicated that the electric Indica would
be launched locally in India in about 2010, without disclosing the price. The vehicle
would be launched in Norway in 2009. Tata Motors' UK subsidiary, Tata Motors European
Technical Centre, has bought a 50.3% holding in electric vehicle technology firm Miljøbil
Grenland/Innovasjon of Norway for US$1.93 million, which specialises in the development
of innovative solutions for electric vehicles, and plans to launch the electric Indica hatchback
in Europe next year. In September 2010, Tata Motors presented four CNG–Electric Hybrid
low-floored Starbuses to the Delhi Transport Corporation, to be used during the Commonwealth
games. These were the first environmentally friendly buses to be used for public transportation
in India. Notable vehicles
Tata Ace
Tata Ace, India's first indigenously developed sub-one-ton mini-truck, was launched in May
2005. The mini-truck was a huge success in India with auto-analysts claiming that Ace
had changed the dynamics of the light commercial vehicle market in the country by creating
a new market segment termed the small commercial vehicle segment. Ace rapidly emerged as the
first choice for transporters and single truck owners for city and rural transport. By October
2005, LCV sales of Tata Motors had grown by 36.6 percent to 28,537 units due to the rising
demand for Ace. The Ace was built with a load body produced by Autoline Industries. By 2005,
Autoline was producing 300 load bodies per day for Tata Motors.
Ace is still a top seller for TML with 500,000 units sold to date. In 2011, Tata Motors invensted
Rs.1000 Crore in Dharwad Plant, Karnataka with the capacity of 90,000 units annually
and launched 2 models of 0.5T capacity as Tata Ace Zip, Magic Iris.
Ace has also been exported to several Asian, European, South American and African countries
and all-electric models are sold through Polaris Industries' Global Electric Motorcars division.
In Sri Lanka it is sold through Diesel & Motor Engineering PLC under the name of DIMO Batta.
Tata 407
Tata 407, is a Light Commercial Vehicle that has sold over 500,000 units since its launch
in 1986. In India, this vehicle dominates market share of the LCV category, accounting
for close to 75% of LCV sales. See also
Tata Motors Auto expo 2014 Singur Tata Nano controversy
Tata Group Automotive industry in India
References
External links Official website
Tata Bus Tata Defence
Tata Motors companies grouped at OpenCorporates