It’s not even a week since Tata Motors inaugurated its new unit at Sanand in Gujarat and we find the car maker over-excited and over-enthusiastic. Tata Motors plans to raise production of its Nano at this brand new Gujarat factory. The ultimate goal is to hit the production mark of 1,200 a day by December.

How soon will Tata meet its goal? That’s something we cannot really predict at the moment. The factory has just been opened. But, the furious pace in rolling out the world’s cheapest four-wheeler is already putting the pressure on automobile parts suppliers who are struggling to meet the demands. Buck up parts suppliers! Nano production is racing.

Right now, there’s just a single 8-hour shift with around 150 Nanos produced every day at Sanand. Tata’s Pantnagar plant too has a similar production schedule. The Nano maker is not just blazing the roads but the parts suppliers’ brains too. Now that the tests have declared the car to be a safe package, sales figures are bound to reach the skies.

Since April, car sales have risen over 25 per cent and auto parts suppliers are already stressed out. The new development plan is further going to add to their worries. A few car manufacturers had to import critical parts such as batteries, tyres, windscreens, glass-packs and wheel rims from South-East Asian countries after supplies fell short.

The world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano has become quite a hit, uh? The demand for cars, on the whole, is soaring with sales expected to touch 6 million units a year by 2015. Right now around 2 million cars are sold every year and small auto component suppliers are finding it rather difficult to cope with the vehicle makers’ needs in amplifying capacities.

The competition among auto majors has growing intense and they have been working at full capacity. More factories are being set up. The component industry is expected to invest nearly $2 billion to add capacity this year.

The domestic supply of components is also improving by the day as these auto parts suppliers have begun investing heavily in capacity expansion. While auto majors like Maruti-Suzuki, Tata Motors and Hyundai have targeted growth of over 10 per cent this year, the component suppliers too would have to hurry up.

It’s high time for all component and car accessory makers to have a strong manufacturing capability to be price-competitive in the long run. Tata Motors, meanwhile, has zeroed in on auto parts vendors as it plans to bring out the diesel version of the Nano by June next year.

The vendors, however, have remained tight-lipped, quoting a confidentiality clause. The Tatas will rely on component subsidiary TACO for the diesel variant and consignments to the U.S. and Europe. Bosch will continue to be a major supplier of fuel injections, brakes and transmission parts.