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Originally Posted by a4anurag I was thinking that Maruti produces the DDiS engine themselves & pays FIAT royalty ! |
It's a rather complicated story, but par for the course when it comes to automobile companies.
Source : 4-year old image from CarMagazine...
FIAT-India-Automobiles-Limited ( FIAL ) is a 50:50 joint venture between Fiat-Group-Automobile-SpA ( Italy ) & Tata-Motors ( India ).
FIAL owns the engine & transmission plant at Ranjangaon.
Suzuki-Motor-Corporation ( SMC ) owns around 56% of Maruti-Suzuki-India-Limited ( MSIL ).
Suzuki-Powertrain-India-Limited ( SPIL ) was a 70:30 joint venture between SMC & MSIL.
SPIL was originally Suzuki-Metal-India-Limited ( SMIL ), which was involved in casting of aluminum engine blocks & heads.
SMIL was renamed as SPIL & its function increased to include manufacture of petrol & diesel engines, as well as transmissions.
SPIL's diesel engine plant was setup with a capacity to make 300,000 DDiS engines a year ( under license from FIAT ).
Due to the demand for the diesel Swift & Dzire, MSIL faced issues with diesel engine supply ( remember the long waiting times ? ).
So, SMC signed an agreement with FIAT, sometime in 2012, for the supply of the 1.3 L diesel engine from FIAL.
The agreement was for Maruti-Suzuki to buy 100,000 diesel engines a year, for 3 years, from FIAL ( i.e. till 2015 ).
SPIL was merged with MSIL sometime in 2012.
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Originally Posted by GTO Fact is, as of date, Fiat builds more cars for other brands & sells more Fiat engines for use in other cars than its own. |
True, now that SMC / MSIL are developing their own line of diesel engines, their dependence on FIAL for diesel engines could be diluted in the next couple of years or so.
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Originally Posted by a4anurag Does that mean the K-Series engine is also produced in that very factory ? |
No, the petrol engine tech comes from SMC, the F, G, M, & now K series engines are all from SMC.
Suzuki makes a monster of an engine for the Hayabusa - a 1.3L engine developing ~175 BHP at 10,000 RPM !
This engine has been bored, stroked, & turbo'd to 600 BHP ( ! ), it's fair to say SMC understands petrol engines very well.
Quite late in the game, but SMC is now working on turbo'd, direct injection petrol engines, as well ( VW & Ford being first-movers ).
It's innovate or die in the automobile world, or at least license the tech from somebody who does
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