SC ruling a penalty, will tap export markets: Tata Motors

Mumbai: The country's largest automaker Tata Motors today said the Supreme Court's ban on selling BS-III models was "unexpected and unprecedented penalty" on the entire industry.

"The Supreme Court order banning sale of all BS-III vehicles from April 1 is an unexpected and unprecedented move that will have a material impact on the entire automotive industry, OEMs' and dealer networks and is a penalty to the
entire automotive industry," Tata Motors said in a statement.

The largest commercial vehicles maker noted that the industry planned the current transition into BS-IV in line with the accepted practice of stopping production of earlier emission standard vehicles effective from the transition date and is also under the prevailing laws.

Before the court verdict, Tata Motors managing director Guenter Butschek had told reporters that if the verdict went against the industry, he would have to explore export opportunities to clear the unsold inventory to markets like like Africa, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

He also categorically said "there is no technology available to upgrade a BS-III vehicle into a BS-IV one." On its passenger vehicles business, he said it has
been producing BS-IV compliant vehicles across our entire product range and are fully BS-IV ready.

Without quantifying the losses or the volume of banned units, the company said it is assessing the impact of the order that are lying unsold on April 1, at both company and dealerships.

In a statement, the second largest commercial vehicles makers Ashok Leyland's managing director Vinod K Dasari said he has only minimal BS-III inventory.

"We have been making BS-IV vehicles since 2010 and has sufficient capability and capacity to make these vehicles. However, since BS-IV commercial vehicles cannot run properly on BS-III fuel, and such fuel is not available nationwide, our customers continued to buy BS III vehicles," Dasari said.

On the BS-III inventory, he said most of the unsold units will be sold in the next couple of days.

"Of the little inventory that we expect to remain beyond this, we will export them to other markets, where we have significant presence and still operate on BS III norms. For any other vehicles still leftover, the company confirms that it will be able to easily upgrade them to BS IV at minimal cost."