Force Motors opens a new plant in Chennai, starts assembly of BMW engines

Force Motors has opened its new plant at Mahindra World City in Chennai. This plant, set up within a time of seven months, is Force Motors' third automotive manufacturing facility. It's also the company's fifth plant in India and is spread across 1,00,000sqft.

The Chennai plant will assemble diesel engines for the BMW X1, X3, X5, 3 Series and 3 GT, 5 Series and 7 Series. Force Motors' Pune plant has been assembling the Mercedes engines for quite sometime. Its Pithampur facility, meanwhile, assembles the Force One SUV.

Force Motors has also identified places for setting up new facilities in Chennai and Gujarat. There are two more facilities coming up in Dewas and Chakan this year. Other than Mercedes-Benz and BMW, Force Motors also caters to Ford in India.

The Chennai plant can produce 20,000 engines annually - each shift has been designed to assemble 24 units. But the capacity can be stretched if the demand from BMW is increased.

BMW India currently manufactures 14,000 cars in a year. Force Motors has also announced its intent of exporting the BMW powertrains manufactured here.