A joint venture is targeting the rapidly expanding Indian motorcycle market and its voracious appetite for replacement batteries with the completion of a new lead-acid battery plant.
Tata AutoComp GY Batteries (TGY) aims to produce around 1.2 million motorcycle batteries per year at the plant in India’s Maharashtra State.
Mass production is set to begin this month after a trial on the newly installed assembly line in the existing building was made possible by a YEN200million ($1.6m) investment.
The company plans to add a second assembly line in 2016 to give it a production capacity of 2.4 million units per year, double the initial capacity.
India’s motorcycle sales almost doubled last year to 16 million vehicles compared to 2009, making it the second largest motorcycle market, next only to China.
TGY had been importing and selling lead-acid motorcycle batteries from its affiliated companies in ASEAN. It will initially start with sales of replacement lead-acid storage batteries and plans to start sales for new vehicles in 2016.
TGY comprises of an equal partnership between India based Tata AutoComp Systems and Japanese battery firm GS Yuasa Corporation.