Chennai, January 18: The automobile engineering design and research company Renault Nissan Technology and Business Centre India Pvt Ltd (RNTBCI) will soon shift the fuel cell research team from near Chennai to IIT Madras Research Park in the city.
“The new centre will have around 100 research engineers. They will study ways to improve the performance of fuel cells,” Grahame Cornforth, senior vice president and director, told reporters here Monday on the sideline of a Nissan Motor dealership launch.
According to him, the company is progressing as per plans and the headcount will go up by 300 to 1,500 by March 2011.
He said the company does engineering design for Nissan’s global operations and not restricted to their Indian car plant.
A 50:50 joint venture between Japanese Nissan Motor Company and Renault of France, RNTBCI works in the areas of advanced research and development, advanced computer aided engineering, product development, digital vehicle development, information systems development, Indian and global parts sourcing.
According to Cornforth the company is working on couple of upstream projects.
“Nowadays building prototype vehicles are not in vogue. A vehicle is designed and engineered in a computer and finally a real car is rolled out for final testing,” he said.
A sum of Rs.645 million ($13 billion) has gone into the venture.
—Agencies