Magneti Marelli Inugurates A New Plant For Manufacturing AMT Transmissions

Magneti Marelli Powertrain India inaugurates a new plant for manufacturing automated manual transmission (AMT)* in Manesar, Haryana. Magneti Marelli's India arm is a joint venture between Magneti Marelli, the component arm of Fiat S.p.A. of Italy, Maruti Suzuki and Suzuki Motor Corporation.

The new plant is located within the Maruti Suzuki township in Manesar and is also part of the same premises of Magneti Marelli's electronic control unit facility. To start off the plant will roll out 10,000 units monthly, and by the end of 2016 or early 2017 will be able to operate at full capacity of 280,000 units per annum.

The company has confirmed; the new AMT plant is developed to address the growing need for the AMT component. Maruti Suzuki had first introduced the automated manual transmissions in 2014 on the Celerio. After which, they made the AMT technology available on the Alto K10. And now, Tata Motors has realised the potential, and the AMT is offered on the Zest and Nano.

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For the past two years, Magneti Marelli was importing the AMT transmissions from its plant in Italy. Going forward local production will start from Manesar, and whenever there is huge demand, the company will continue to import.

Magneti Marelli has invested Rs. 150 crore for the 7,500 square metres new plant, and will employ around 115 people. The plant has the potential to supply to other markets as well.

Automatic manual transmission cars are the need of the hour. In 2014, Magneti Marelli sold more than 50,000 units of AMT and generated a revenue of Rs. 1300 crore. And this year, the plant is manufacturing almost double the units it sold last year.

The market for automatic cars is on a rise and roughly around 4 to 5 percent of the passenger vehicle segment is powered by automatic transmissions, out of which 50 percent is AMT.

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* Automated manual transmission (AMT) supervises the use of the clutch and the gear shifting by opening and closing the clutch, engaging and disengaging the gears. This technology derived from Formula 1 allows the driver to change gears without using the clutch, either sequentially or fully automatically. Click here to learn more.