SCOOP! Tata Motors, Chery may jointly develop Creta fighter
Tata Motor’s original plan was to adapt the Land Rover sourced Omega platform for a mid-size SUV but this idea was soon abandoned because downsizing the Harrier’s Omega platform wasn’t feasible as the engineering challenges and costs were proving too high. Downsizing the Omega platform (which itself is based on the Land Rover’s rather large L550 platform) to match the smaller dimensions of the H4 would have meant changing the ‘hard points’ and this, according to company sources, “would have been almost as costly as developing a new platform altogether”
The other option was to use the smaller Alfa platform, which was conceived for a family of small, front-wheel-drive vehicles of which the upcoming Altroz premium hatch will be the first. Stretching the Alfa platform beyond a four metre length is possible but our sources tell us that the big limitation is wheel size. The Alfa platform cannot support larger diameter wheels, which is key to an SUV’s appeal. For a Creta sized SUV “the wheel diameter should be at least 700mm to get the right proportions and stance” said a Tata Motors source. Sources say that the ALFA platform cannot take wheels bigger than 700mm,which works for a sub-four-metre SUV like the Nexon (which has a wheel diameter of 665mm) but not a full-size SUV.
The lack of overlap between the Alfa and Omega platforms has exposed a gaping hole in Tata Motors’ two-platform strategy which can’t accommodate 4.0 -4.5 metre long SUVs. Investing in a third platform to fill this space isn’t an option because the volumes in the mid-size SUV segment are not big enough to justify the huge development costs.
Hence, sharing platforms with Chery makes sense for Tata Motors as the Chinese automaker has a wide range of products from the the Tiggo 2 to the Tiggo 5 that span the core of the mid-size SUV segment where Tata Motors is absent. It’s not clear which of Chery’s platforms Tata Motors is evaluating for the Blackbird but in terms of dimensions, the one that underpins the 4338mm long Tiggo 4 seems best suited. Tata and Chery will each build their own ‘top hats’ off this shared platform to differentiate their products from the other, but will also use a common set of underpinnings like the same chassis, suspension and power trains which should result in substantial cost savings.
Autocarindia