Hayes Lemmerz Invests In India

Hayes Lemmerz is to build new facilities at its plant in Pune (200 kilometres south of Mumbai) where it currently produces steel truck wheels. The joint venture factory is 85 per cent owned by Hayes Lemmerz with Indian company Kalyani (one of the largest suppliers of automotive components, especially castings) as junior partner.

Capacity will be increased from 600,000 wheels annually to 850,000 units with further expansion to one million wheels being considered. Most customers are in the local Indian market as well in Asia (Korea, Taiwan, Hongkong, Malaysia, etc.), but exports are also expected to go to European customers like DaimlerChrysler, Iveco and the German trailer industry. The new plant will be officially inaugurated in December.