Cars:From India to Europe

Two carmakers are preparing to export low-cost vehicles from India to western Europe, even as rival Tata Motors struggles to get its no-frills Nano on the road in its home market.
Maruti Suzuki, India 's largest carmaker, and Japan's Nissan Motor will at this week's Paris auto exhibit Indian-made city cars destined for customers on the continent next year.
The Suzuki Alto and Nissan Pixo will be made at a factory in Manesar, northern India , under a partnership agreement and will mark the country's first largescale foray into car exports to western Europe.
"Our export target is 100,000 units of the new Alto by 2010-11," Maruti Suzuki spokesman Puneet Dhawan told the Financial Times on Monday, with another 50,000 sold in India.

The figure would cover both western and eastern Europe, Mr Dhawan said. The carmaker plans to scale up production later and expand exports to the Middle East and elsewhere.
Maruti exported an older version of the Alto to the Netherlands, Italy, the UK and other markets until 2006, but sold only about 100,000 units over seven years. MG Rover, before going into receivership in 2005, briefly sold Tata's Indica model rebadged as CityRover.
Neither Nissan nor Suzuki are discussing prices for their cars, which will face European import duties offsetting some of the cost benefits of producing in India.
Nissan described the Pixo as "an affordable small, eco-friendly city car at a time when this type of vehicle is in demand". The cars will launch at a time when Europeans are shifting into smaller cars and India 's fledgling motor industry is buying distressed carmaking assets in Europe.

Argentum Motors, an Indian company that in 2007 bought Daewoo's former manufacturing plants in India for about $200m, will in Paris show a prototype hybrid electric car.
Argentum recently bought Heuliez, a bankrupt French automotive design and engineering firm, and is exploring the possibility of building electric cars for the European market.
"We feel the market for these vehicles is first in Europe before India ," Ajay Singh, the company's chairman, told the FT this month.
Tata, which this year bought UK premium brands Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor for $2.3bn, plans to participate in a capital increase of Pininfarina, the Italian design house.
India 's other fledgling carmakers, including Mahindra & Mahindra, are scouting Europe's troubled automotive design and engineering sector for companies that would allow them to build expertise and couple their existing front-office relationships with their own low-cost manufacturing operations.
Maruti, 54 per cent owned by Japan's Suzuki, describes the Alto as a "green car for European customers", with carbon dioxide emissions of just 109 grams per kilometer.
However, Indian-made cars could face scepticism from some European consumers. Some early Chinese-made cars exported to Europe failed crash tests and were later withdrawn.
The Alto and Pixo will be sold under the Suzuki and Nissan brands respectively, so few car buyers will know they were made in India.
Mr Dhawan said the Alto had a 4-star Euro NCAP crash-test rating. Five stars is the highest ranking.