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"We will look at sourcing engines from Renault's plant in Chennai and if that does take place, the level of localisation in Logan could increase up to 80 per cent," Mahindra-Renault managing director Rajesh Jejurikar told PTI on the sidelines of 9th Auto Expo in New Delhi.
He said when Logan was introduced last year, localisation level was 52 per cent that has has gone up to 56 per cent now. "In the next six months, it will go up to 60 per cent," he said, adding that the engines are currently being imported from Spain.
Dispelling fears of any impact on M&M pulling out of the proposed tripartite joint-venture for the Chennai plant, Jejurikar said as per the agreement between M&M and Renault, the Mahindra-Renault JV would continue to produce and sell Logan, and planned to bring seven seater multi-purpose vehicle (MPV).
He also said Renault's vehicles manufactured from Chennai would be marketed under joint badging of Mahindra-Renault in the Indian market as per the deal. In all likelihood, Mahindra-Renault is likely to source diesel engines from from Renault's proposed Chennai plant.
"Currently, Logan has three engine variants, two petrol and one diesel, but 70 per cent of Logan sales is accounted for by the diesel variant. So it is easy to infer which engine we could source from Renault-Nissan," Jejurikar said.
On plans of bringing the Logan MPV, Jejurikar said a decision could be taken in the next 45 days after the end of an evaluation process. Once we finalise things then the product could go for production in the next 18-24 months at the Nasik facility," he said.
Recently, M&M had walked out of the tripartite JV and said it would focus on its Chakan plant for future production even as Renault-Nissan reiterated their commitment to the plant saying they would invest Rs 4,000 crore (Rs 40 billion) on the project, which would have a capacity of producing 400,000 vehicles.