Nissan Motor India Limited, one of the leading global car manufacturers,today announced its plan to launch a new multipurpose vehicle in August, while doubling its production capacity in its Chennai plant by next month.

Announcing this Nissan India Managing Director and CEO Kiminobu Tokuyama here today said that in accordance with a Memorandam of Understadnnig(MoU)with the Tamil Nadu government they had already invested Rs 2800 crore in their Chennai plant and would pump in another Rs 1700 crore by 2015 for further expanding the capacity and modernisation of their facilities in the country. ''We are commited to investing a total of Rs 4500 crore in India by 2015,'' Mr Tokuyama said. Asked about Nissan's new plan for the Indian market where currently they enjoyed about 12 to 15 per cent market share in the passenger car segment, the MD said they had decided to launch a new seven seater multi-purpose passerger veicle called 'Evalia' in August next. ''During the next 18 months we hope to improve our sales target to 100,000 vehicles per annum from the current sales of about 40,000 cars a year,'' he said. ''We are also planning to launch another car in the small car segment in India as the demand for such cars was growing at a rate of over 30 to 35 per cent per annum,'' Mr Tokuyama said. But he refused to share further details stating that the matter was 'still at the drawing board level'. ''It would take some more time to wholly conceptualise the design and other features of the proposed small car,'' Mr Tokuyama said. ''The only thing I can share with you at the present juncture is that the price of this new small car would be less than Rs four lakhs each,'' Mr Tokuyama said. Asked about his plan to double the production capacity of Nissan India's only plant at Oragadam near Chennai from 200,000 units per annum to 400,000 units by March next, Mr Tokuyama said this had become necessary to meet the growing demand for export to Nissan cars to Africa,the Middle East and even to Europe at the rate of about 1.6 lakh vehicles per annum.

He said currently only four Nissan cars--Micra, Sunny, Teanna and Xtrail were being sold in India and following the launch of Evalia in August and the unnamed small car, expectedly within the next couple of years,the total number of such vehicles would go upto seven. Mr Tokuyma admitted that Nissan had experienced slowdown in sales following steep rise in petrol,diesel and raw material prices last year. ''As a result last year only about 13,000 cars were sold,'' he added. However,this year(2011-12)as many as 40,000 cars would be sold, registering a considerable jump from last year, he reiterated. He said Nissan had also signed a joint venture agreement with leading truck manufacturer Ashok Leyland in terms of product development and power trainining. Ashok Leyland was thus able to launch its laterst product in the stable of heavy veghicle, a 1.25 tonne truck 'Dost' a few months ago. Mr Tokuyama was accompanied by Mr Manoj Kumar, Vice- President,Operations.