TVS Motor Company

History

TVS was established by Mr TV Sundaram Iyengar. He began with delhi first bus service in 1911 and founded T.V.Sundaram Iyengar and Sons Limited, a company in the transportation business with a large fleet of trucks and buses under the name of Southern Roadways Limited. When he died in 1955, his sons took the company ahead with several forays in the automobile sector, including finance, insurance, manufacture of two-wheelers, tyres and components. The group has managed to run 97 companies that account for a combined turnover of nearly $6 billion.

Sundaram Clayton was founded in 1962 in collaboration with Clayton Dewandre Holdings, United Kingdom. It manufactured brakes, exhausts, compressors and various other automotive parts. The company set up a plant at Hosur in 1978, to manufacture mopeds as part of their new division. In 1980, TVS 50, India's first two-seater moped rolled out of the factory at Hosur in Tamil Nadu, Southern India. A technical collaboration with the Japanese auto giant Suzuki Ltd. resulted in the joint-venture between Sundaram Clayton Ltd and Suzuki Motor Corporation, in 1982. Commercial production of motorcycles began in 1984.

TVS and Suzuki shared a 19-year-long relationship that was aimed at technology transfer, to enable design and manufacture of two-wheelers specifically for the Indian market. Re-christened TVS-Suzuki, the company brought out several models such as the Suzuki Supra, Suzuki Samurai, Suzuki Shogun and Suzuki Shaolin. In 2001, after separating ways with Suzuki, the company was renamed TVS Motor, relinquishing its rights to use the Suzuki name. There was also a 30-month moratorium period during which Suzuki promised not to enter the Indian market with competing two-wheelers.

Recent Launches include RTR 200, TVS Victor and TVS XL 100. TVS has recently won 4 top awards at J.D. Power Asia Pacific Awards 2016, 3 top awards at J.D. Power Asia Pacific Awards 2015 & Two-Wheeler Manufacturer of the Year at NDTV Car & Bike Awards (2014–15)

In early 2015, TVS Racing became the first Indian factory team to take part in the Dakar Rally, which is the longest and most dangerous rally in the world. TVS Racing partnered with French motorcycle manufacturer Sherco for the Dakar rally, and named the team Sherco TVS Rally Factory Team . TVS Racing also won the Raid de Himalaya and the FOX Hill Super Cross held at Sri Lanka. In three decades of its racing history, the team has won more than 90% of the races.

In 2016 TVS started manufacturing the BMW G310R, a model co-developed with BMW Motorrad.

Characteristics of TVS Motor

TVS Motor was the first Indian company to deploy a catalytic converter in a 100 cc motorcycle and the first to indigenously produce a four stroke 150cc motorcycle. The list of firsts from TVS: "India’s first 2-seater moped – TVS 50", "India’s first indigenous scooterette - TVS Scooty", "India’s first Digital Ignition - TVS Champ", "India’s first fully indigenous motorcycle - Victor", "First Indian company to launch ABS in a motorcycle - Apache RTR Series", "The first scooter with Body-Balance Technology – TVS Wego","The clutchless motorcycle=Jive", "Indonesia’s first dual-tone exhaust noise technology – Tormax" & "India's first oil-cooled chamber construct with Ram-Air assist- TVS Apache RTR 200 4V"

Mopeds

Scooters

Motorcycles

Three Wheelers

Mopeds

Scooters

Motorcycles

TVS Motor has a production capacity of over 3 million Vehicles a year. The company has four state of the art manufacturing plants - three located in India (Hosur, Tamil Nadu; Mysore, Karnataka and Nalagarh, Himachal Pradesh) and one in Indonesia (Karawang).

Today, TVS Motor functions through a nationwide network of more than 4000 touch points across all the states in India.

Awards

TVS Motor won prestigious the Deming Application Prize in 2002.

In the same year, the work done for the TVS Victor motorcycle won TVS Motor the National Award for successful commercialization of indigenous technology from the Technology Development Board, Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India. In 2004, TVS Scooty Pep won the 'Outstanding Design Excellence Award' from BusinessWorld magazine and the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.

The effective implementation of Total Productivity Maintenance practices won TVS Motor the TPM Excellence Award given by the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance in 2008.

TVS Motor has won several management awards, notable among them being the Emerging Corporate Giant in the Private Sector awarded by The Economic Times and the Harvard Business School Association of India. Business Today magazine awarded TVS Motor the Best Managed Company and the Most Investor Friendly Company awards. Its advertising practices won it the Good Advertising Award by Auto India Best Brand Awards, 2009.

The University of Warwick, United Kingdom, gave him an honorary Doctorate of Science degree while the Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri, one of India's highest civilian distinctions.

Innovative implementation of Information Technology has won TVS Motor the Ace Award for Most Innovative NetWeaver Implementation in 2007, awarded by technology major SAP AG and the Team Tech 2007 Award of Excellence for Integrated use of Computer-aided engineering Technologies.