Manufacturing 3 Million Vehicles By Maruti Alone

The country’s biggest car maker Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, to transmit one-third of its production by rail have gotten fixed as Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corp. Ltd (HSIIDC) hasn’t capable to obtain the land needed to put down dedicated tracks from Patli station in Manesar to the company’s plant 18km away.

The compact, intense on dropping its trust on road transport as output is set to rise to three million units a year in the next three-four years, is pushing Indian Railways to set up an option. Besides saving on expenses, wear and tear, transporting vehicles by rail divides the transit time.

Maruti Suzuki official said that the Maruti alone will be developing three million automobiles by 2015-16 and all these automobiles cannot go by road. So a practical option is required.

M.M. Singh, chief operating officer (production) at Maruti Suzuki said that besides ground achievement problems, there is also a question on whether the project should be dedicated wholly to Maruti or be thrown open to other companies. Singh also heads a team of professionals from the automobile industry looking for to increase teamwork with the railways. “Initially, the plan was to get the railway line to Manesar as we plan to move 35% of our total production through (the) railways,” he said.

Maruti, which has industrial unit in Gurgaon and nearby Manesar, now transfers 5% of its production by rail. The quantity of cars that it sends by rail is controlled by the lack of services.

Petrol price hike: Many dump cars, rush to enter public transport

Most recent in circles of petrol price hike has prompted commuters to dump their vehicles and exchange to public transport. In the last 4 days, over 20,000 commuters have switched over to Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) and the Ahmedabad Municipal Transport service (AMTS).

Officials in the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) say the average number of passengers travelling by the BRTS was about 1.08 lakh. Since May 25, this has increased to about 1.13 lakh for every day.

On May 23, about 1.06 lakh passengers travelled by BRTS and on May 25 this increased to 1.13 lakh. AMC officials say more people will switch giving the fact that more air conditioned buses were being introduced. The traffic will further increase by about 18,000 passengers after schools and colleges reopen.

Similarly there was a increase of about 15,000 passengers for every day in the AMTS buses. Officials said the daily passenger traffic in AMTS buses was about 9 lakh. This has touched 9.20 lakh ever since the petrol prices were hiked. Rajesh Patel, who stays near Subhash Bridge says, "I have to travel from Chandkheda to Paldi. I earlier used my two-wheeler but with the increase in the petrol prices, I have decided to use the BRT. I walk for nearly 500 metre to board a BRTS bus."

Holden Inks agreement to Ship Commodore ‘Muscle Cars’ To America

Holden will hit American roads again after more than 15 years of absence in the region, GM Holden report on Friday, and the North American incarnation will come in the form of Australia's venerable sedan, the Commodore.

According to Holden's engineering chief, Greg Tyus, the Australian carmaker will assemble the VF Commodore on its South Australian factory and will start shipping out early 2013.

The United States will welcome the Aussie vehicle as General Motors' Chevrolet SS high-performance sedan, which initially will be deployed on the race car circuits of America's hugely popular and lucrative NASCAR.

Commodore, according to Mr Tyus, will compete in the Daytona 500 if plans push through.

Then, further units will be assembled to mass marketing, with General Motors reportedly planning to sell each Commodore unit as a new generation muscle car, an automotive market segment that Holden said lately has been seeing resurgence in the United States.