Jamshedpur: Tata Cummins, the 50:50 joint venture between Cummins Inc, USA and Tata Motors, may go for capacity expansion if the current boom phase in offtake of engines persists.

“The volume scenario is what we never thought of,” Samidh Mukhopadhyay vice-president (finance and IT), told FE. According to Mr Mukhop-adhyay, Tata Motors, which normally takes around 2,000 engine units annually (mostly the 6B-type), has taken delivery of over 4,000 units till August.

“Up to June there was an excess demand for around 700 units but by July and August that went up by more than 2,000,” he said, adding, “In the month of August we were finding it difficult to cope with the excess demand.”

Tata Cummins is currently mulling whether or not the excess demand is a sustained one requiring expansion of the capacity of its plant located adjacent to that of Tata Motors’ here.

“May be in the near future we would go for some expansion,” 
Mr Mukhopadhyay said. Tata Cummins is waiting for Tata Motors to pick up its 4B engines for use on its bus chasses as well as on vans meant for export to South Africa. Five prototypes of its 4B engine are being tested by Tata Motors.

“Once they are through with the tests, we’ll go for larger volumes,” said Mr Mukhopadhyay.

The 4B engine has multifarious applications and it can be used as a genset or an industrial engine, among others. “We have made a conservative estimate of the demand for our 4B engine at about 7000 annually three years from now,” Mr Mukhopadhyay said.

The 4B engines have already passed Tier-I tests for industrial applications and are in use in various units. However, for automotive use, particularly for meeting the Euro-II emission norms, it has to have added features.

Tata Cummins, which has the lowest cost of production among Cummins’ 43 outfits worldwide, makes engines of the 6B-type (including its huge variants) and the 4B-type (including its variants) at its sophisticated plant here, mostly for Tata Motors’ MCV & HCV unit.