The new facility at Thiruvananthapuram would be home for 50 per cent of Nissan’s worldwide digital workforce. It will support technology enabling of electric and autonomous cars for the automaker
Japanese automotive major Nissan will open its first Global Digital Hub in India on Monday.
The state-of-the-art facility located at Yamuna building in Technopark phase – III, Thiruvananthapuram will be inaugurated by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan today at 4 pm.
According to Tony Thomas, Chief Information Officer, Nissan, the facility would be home for 50 per cent of Nissan’s worldwide digital workforce.
The work here will focus on building new-age digital capabilities to enhance customer experiences, product development, connectivity and security for autonomous, connected and electric vehicles.
Strengthening employee strength
While introducing the new office premises to reporters on Sunday, Tony also shared that the company plans to increase the employee strength in Thiruvananthapuram from the current 350 members to 500 by this financial year.
The New Indian Express quoted Tony as saying: “Our focus areas are Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity and data science. The work here will support technology enabling of electric and autonomous cars for Nissan. Moreover, Nissan vendors will also add more employees here in this facility. Preliminary work has started at the proposed campus at Technocity.”
Suja Chandy has been appointed as managing director for Nissan Digital India. She will be responsible for the operations of the facility.
Nissan and its partners, Renault SA and Mitsubishi Motors Corp, are planning to launch 17 electric models to achieve annual vehicle sales of 14 million units by 2022. The annual vehicle sales reached 10.6 million units in 2017.
Kerala government’s EV policy draws controversy
The Kerala government has set a target to launch 10 lakh electric vehicles (EVs) by 2022. To achieve this target, it recently rolled out an electric vehicle policy (EVP), which has landed in a controversy.
The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) has proposed for removal of section 3.1.2 of the policy. SIAM said that the Kerala government incentive under 3.1.2 would be against FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacture of Electric Vehicles) guideline, due to sale of a vehicle without battery.
