Ashok Leyland may look to supply engines of up to three liter capacity for car models coming out of Franco Japanese Renault Nissan's plant near Chennai.

The commercial vehicle maker, which plans to launch its first passenger vehicle in a year, operates three joint ventures with Nissan (for car manufacturing, engines and a third for R&D). The first product from this tie up, the 1.2 tonne Dost LCV, was launched recently, while two more platforms (for an MPV and for a six tonne truck and bus) are on the way.

Dr V Sumantran EVC Hinduja Automotive and chairman of Nissan Ashok Leyland Powertrain told Business Line that "We're open to supplying engines to them if required it's an interesting proposition. Right now, however, we will concentrate on meeting our own requirement. We are developing a three liter diesel engine for the larger trucks. We have capability to make engines from 1.5 to around 3 liter capacities."

Nissan itself has a 400,000 annual capacity plant at Oragadam in Tamil Nadu shared with global alliance partner Renault, where it currently manufactures the Micra small car and Sunny sedan and assembles the premium Teana sedan. While this facility currently includes an engine plant that makes only small capacity engines, the alliance is also building a second such plant for bigger engines.

Ashok Leyland is also developing an electric variant of the Dost (with technology help from Nissan), which may be unveiled within a year.

He said that "We're working on an electric Dost, the eDost. This is being developed in partnership with Nissan and should be showcased within the next 12 months. At the auto expo in 2010, we also showed the world's first plug in series hybrid bus and that received very good reviews. We're developing that further as well."

This follows competitors TATA Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra, which are also working on electric versions of their LCVs Ace and Maxximo, respectively.

(Sourced from www.thehindubusinessline.com)