Business
Stallion Delivers More Made-In- Nigeria Vehicles
A West African Con
glomerate, the Stallion Group has delivered another range of made-in-Nigeria vehicles at an affordable price.
The chairman of the groups, Mr Sunil Vaswani who disclosed this in a chat with newsmen in Lagos said the development which is in line with the Federal Government National Automotive Policy would give Nigerians a sigh of relief from the whole-sale vehicles importers.
Vaswani said the company had in July this year announced the commencement of locally produced Hyundai range of vehicles, having rolled-out the first set of the made-in-Nigeria Nissan automobiles in April, 2014.
According to him, the new vehicles would be affordable to satisfy the quest of Nigerians, pointing out that some of the Hyundai Passenger cars cost between N1.5 million and N1.9 million while the county bus and 30-seater stallion buses are now being supplied into the market.
Meanwhile, automobile dealers have expressed fear over the sustainability of the manufacturing and made-in-Nigeria assembly plants .
According to reports, the dealers said the made-in-Nigeria Nissan range of vehicles and that of Hyundai rolled-out by stallion Group might not sell faster as Nigerians are yet to be convinced about its durability and sustainability.
They also condemned the alleged 90 per cent of materials used in the production of the brands being imported, adding that local content in car manufacturing in Nigeria remained a challenge to the assembly plants.
According to them, issues bordering on the automobile policy, the poor state of the roads and especially the issues of the standard adding that the Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) is yet to come up with its position on the development.
However, the National Automotive Council (NAC) said it had spent well over N100 million on the installation of training equipment on modern car electrical and electronic maintenance in six universities across the country.
About 400 students have been trained with a Memorandum of Under standing (MOU) signed with these institutions to train other artisans.