Telco plans 3 new cars by 2003

"We have entered into a design, production and manufacturing contract," Tata said when asked about the nature of the agreement with Peugeot Citreon. He said the company would borrow the platform of a two-box car from the European’s firm’s stable and then convert it into a three-box model for the domestic market.

When asked whether this alliance would conflict with the manufacture of TELCO’s Magna’ car, Tata said, "the Magna project is on schedule. The new car with Peugeot Citreon would be launched in the Accord’ segment".

The Honda Accord’ car costs about Rs 15 lakh in India while the company had earlier announced the price of the Magna’ at about Rs 10 lakh.

Telco is likely to sell targeted 70,000 Indica’ cars this financial year, Tata said. "I do not think so (that we will not reach the target)," Tata said here when asked whether the company would fail to reach the present target in the remaining three months of 2000-01.

He, however, said the domestic automobile market would continue the sluggish trend witnessed in the previous months. The company had earlier last year announced a sales target of 90,000 units for the premium small car Indica.

"When the whole (domestic automobile) market is shrinking, then there is no question about us talking about sales target. But, we will maintain our market share," he said. "I do not see it (domestic automobile sales) rising in the coming months," Tata said.

Cumulative domestic sales (April-December 2000-01) of Telco went down by 14.4 per cent to 31,958 Indica cars from 37,223 units sold in the first nine months of 1999-2000.

Telco had earlier said the Indica has secured 17 per cent market share in the segment and eight per cent of the total car market during April-December 2000-01.

Domestic car sales after being on the upswing in 1999 dipped four per cent to 386,527 units during April-November 2000-01 against 402,694 units sold in the year-ago period.