Jeeps running in the US, Europe carry an Indian stamp

What is common between the Jeep Compass sold in the US, Jeep Renegade that sells in Europe and the Jeep Grand Commander sold in China? They all find their roots at the twin engineering centres in India managed by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA).

The Chennai centre in fact has grown to be one of the largest technology centres outside of North America for FCA, housing about 1,000 engineers (total FCA India engineer headcount is about 1600). Every new vehicle project of FCA destined for the US, Europe or anywhere else in the globe is done from Chennai.

“Covid or no Covid the engineering centres in India have only become stronger. If there has been any change it is only for the better. They are an indispensable part of any product developed by FCA,” said Partha Datta, president and managing director FCA India, who was working at the Pune tech centre before being asked to lead the company in September last year.

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Set up in 2007, the Chennai centre handles parts designing, testing and validation for all products developed, manufactured and sold in the US and European markets.

The Pune centre, however, is in charge of products coming to India. The premium SUV Jeep Compass, for instance, was fine tuned for Indian tastes by the Pune centre.

“The Chennai and Pune engineering centres gained in global prominence at the global development stage. All of the virtual work done from a development standpoint and the analysis is actually led by Chennai. That center is getting more prominent for FCA as a global engineering resource. The Pune centre has a part of that responsibility but it does work for India products,” Datta said in an exclusive interaction with Moneycontrol.

Only a year back FCA’s survivability in India was under the scanner given the imminent pullout of the Fiat brand from India, sale of Ford’s India assets preceded only by the exit of General Motors.

The Italian-US company banked heavily on the Jeep brand of Chrysler for a turnaround in its fortunes. Jeep, a purely SUV brand in the premium category, made an official entry into India in mid-2016.

With sales of less than 8,500 units (as of March 31, 2020) FCA is far from being labeled as a serious competitor to some of the bigger players in India.

However, despite COVID-19 forcing auto companies to prune operations and postpone plans, FCA is doing the exact opposite.

“If for anything we are rethinking investments in India for the better. Certainly we are always looking out for fleshing out and making sure that our product portfolio is added to. As we had committed earlier there will be a sub-four meter SUV, also working on a few iconic products that we will be bringing to the showrooms and all of this in addition to a new Compass,” added Datta.

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“Customers are wary being in proximity of somebody they are not familiar with. Our digital portal is now operational for several weeks where we are seeing pretty large number of leads, where people are coming for enquiry which is the first step before they come for a retail experience,” added Datta.

More than half of FCA India's total dealership strength of 80 is open.