Toyota Kirloskar Motor to invest ₹3,300 crore to set up third plant in Karnataka

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BENGALURU : Toyota Kirloskar Motor on Tuesday announced plans to invest ₹3,300 crore to set up its third plant at Bidadi in Karnataka. The new unit, which will commence production by 2026, will have an annual capacity of 1 lakh units in two shifts. It will come up at the company's existing facility at Bidadi, near Bengaluru where it currently has two units with a combined installed production capacity of up to 3.42 lakh units annually.

The new plant, apart from producing multi-utility vehicle Innova HyCross, will be "future ready" to roll out models spanning across different fuel technologies, Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) Executive Vice President & Country Head Vikram Gulati told PTI. "I believe, we are as a company future-ready, both in terms of access to technology, access to well-accepted products across various powertrains as also access to the ability to bring these products to market," he said. He further said in the industry, it doesn't take too much for the same line or some lines to be made ready for introducing any kind of powertrains.

"It does take a bit of doing but it's not really a huge barrier, in my opinion. So that that makes us ready and flexible in terms of any of the powertrains going forward. And I'm sure the new plant is going to be much more advanced and much more future ready," Gulati said when asked if the third plant will have the provision for producing new technology vehicles such as electric vehicles.

He, however, said it is too early to give any specifics. The third plant will create 2,000 jobs, adding to the current 11,200 strong workforce across the existing two plants, he added. The company has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Karnataka government regarding the fresh