Government’s new auto policy forces rethink at VoN

The new automotive policy of the Federal Government is beginning to yield result, as Stallion Automobile Group, owners of VoN Automobiles has started churning out Ashok Leyland commercial buses, Hyundai and Nissan range of vehicles from its assembly plant along the Laogos-Badagry Expressway.

The company has about 400 staff.

Investigation by BusinessDay at the plant shows that  gradual automobile assembly operations have started, as the company  has commenced a phased delivery of low priced made-in-Nigeria cars, probably under the SKD (Semi-Knocked Down) 1 stage, to its provisional dealers nationwide.

Industry watchers say that the gradual take-off of  assembly activities inside the Volks Wagen of Nigeria (VoN) plant in Lagos, and the subsequent involvement of others that have signed-up to set up production facilities in different parts of the country, would stimulate significant employment and fasts-track development of support industries, as well as transfer of technology.

This development is coming shortly after the Stallion Group rolled-out made-in-Nigeria Nissan Patrol SUV range of vehicles in April. Sunil Vaswani, chairman of Stallion Group,  said the new vehicles  would be affordably priced  in order to free Nigerians from the stranglehold of wholesale vehicle importers. 

Other deliveries in the passenger car segment are the  Nissan Almera, Nissan 1-ton Pick-up,  Hyundai i10, Grand, Elantra and iX35 SUV, while the 10-ton HD160; seven-ton HD 120; five-ton HD78 and three-ton HD65 are among those in the light commercial vehicle segment. There is also the 28+1 seater Hyundai County bus and 30-seater  County bus, in the commuter bus category.

For the Hyundai i10 city car and Grand models, Stallion Motors has  announced a starting price of between N1.5m and NGN1.9m. It would be recalled that Stallion Group announced last July, that it would soon commence a phased production of affordably-priced Hyundai models.

Tokunbo Aromolaran, managing director, Stallion Group assembly plant, said the vehicles are built to global highest automotive operating standard of ISO/TS 16949. This is the highest automotive operating standard in the world and its benefits include improved quality processes with streaming supply chains that lead to better overall products.

The first phase delivery establishes a system of records for the complete vehicle programme which will gradually be expanded to meet the ever increasing demand for functional vehicles in Nigeria, the plant director said.

Aromolaran added that with the delivery of locally assembled vehicles by the plant, the company has delivered on its promise to make available affordably priced vehicles. He thanked  President Goodluck Jonathan and Olusegun Aganga, minister of industry, trade and investment for facilitating the process. 

Parvir Singh, group managing director in charge of sales, marketing and dealer development of Hyundai Motors Nigeria Limited, who received the made-in-Nigeria vehicles on behalf of provisional dealers, described the accomplishment as a milestone in the history of Nigeria’s evolving automotive industry.

Singh described the vehicles as  elegantly crafted and  functional cars with good styling, fuel economy  and modest starting prices.

MIKE OCHONMA