I am in Frankfurt as I write this. On Thursday, my organisation SupplierBusiness had organised a conference during the show. The conference's agenda was “Supplying the Global Auto Industry” and we addressed issues like “Supplying to Low Cost cars” and “Supplying from Low Cost Locations” during the conference.

The day long event had some interesting speakers including Bo Anderson from GM, Wolf-Henning Scheider of Bosch, Prof. John Henke from Planning Perspectives (They carry out a very interesting survey of suppliers in North America) and Glenn Mercer (formerly McKinsey, now Sr. Advisor UBS).

However, the surprise ‘hit' of the day was E Balasubramoniam (I hope I got the spelling right), who is responsible for the purchasing of the Tata One–Lakh (Euro 1800) car. The man came with a very detailed presentation and disclosed as many details about the car (sorry, no photos) as possible at this stage. So, we now know that the car will be eventually manufactured at four plants across India, will target a production run of a million units per annum and is still staying true to its price target of Euro 1800, ex-showroom. Apart from these, more details of the Tata Low Cost Vehicle will appear in a future issue of SupplierBusiness Analysis.