Tata Motors to launch electric car by September

Indian conglomerate Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata has said that Tata Motors will have an electric car in the market by September this year.

"We will have an electric car in the market in September," Tata was quoted as saying by Cornell University on its micro-blogging feed on Twitter. Tata is also a Cornell trustee.

He talked about the electric car at the Cornell Global Forum on Sustainable Global Enterprise organised by the university.In 2008, Ratan Tata speaking at the Annual General Meeting of Tata Motors said that the company was developing an electric car.

Foreign media also reported quoting Tata at the forum that Tata Nano, dubbed as the world's cheapest car, is expected to be available in the US in the next two years.

The much-awaited Nano was commercially launched in March in India and is expected to hit the roads soon. According to the university website, the Tata Education and Development Trust committed USD 50 million to Cornell in October 2008 to establish the Tata Scholarship Fund for Students from India and the Tata-Cornell Initiative in Agriculture and Nutrition, intended to improve the lives and livelihoods of India's rural poor

Toyota To Ramp Up Prius Production To Cover High Demand

THANKS TO HUGE demand and a surge of interest in the car ahead of its US launch, Toyota will be increasing production of the 2010 Prius at the two Japanese plants that produce the car. Initial sales forecasts were pegged at 100,000 cars for 2009, but after 80,000 people pre-ordered a Prius before it even launched in Japan and 20,000 more orders were placed after the launch, Toyota’s been forced to change its plans.

Annual production will be increased from 400,000 to 500,000 units per year, which should enable Toyota to supply most global markets on time and with a minimal waiting period. However, high demand from the US could rob other markets of their allocations which, considering the popularity of the outgoing model, may be a likely scenario.

That may drive some buyers into the arms of Honda and its recently-launched Insight, however bulging order books for that model means Honda is also experiencing the same supply problems as Toyota - so much so that the Australian launch of the Insight has been pushed back to the second half of 2010.

The 2010 Toyota Prius is scheduled to arrive in Aussie showrooms next month. Last time heard from Toyota that date was a dead certainty, so at this stage it appears we won’t experience any delays in receiving Toyota’s new hybrid. Whether that changes or not, one thing’s for certain: this is definitely a good time to be in the hybrid business.