December 25 2020
Iran’s leading automotive company has unveiled a new domestic model amid a surge in output that many attribute to the growing indigenization of the industry as a result of US sanctions.
Minister of Industries Alireza Razm-Hossaini was at a production plant of the Iran Khodro Company (IKCO) to unveil Tara, a sedan that the firm says is 92 percent comprised of parts manufactured by Iranian suppliers, which, if true, would set a record.
Tara, which means star in Persian, will go into mass production in February, according to IKCO.
The company will partner with a consortium of 132 Iranian parts makers to manufacture the car. It didn’t say from where the remaining 8 percent of the parts would come.
The Fars news agency said Tara’s body production would be one the most sophisticated in the Middle East, as it will use laser welding and cold metal transfer technologies.
The unveiling of Tara comes amid a boom in Iran’s domestic car manufacturing, which went into a deep depression in late 2018 after President Trump re-imposed sanctions. A government report published December 17 showed that car production in the country had surged by 27.3 percent year-on-year in November.
The report showed that total output of domestic cars had reached nearly 622,000 units in the eight months to November 20, up from nearly 489,000 units produced in the same period in 2019.
IKCO officials said the company’s nine-month output would exceed that of the entire calendar year ending March 2020. But output is still nowhere near the record production of 1,649,311 in the Gregorian year 2011 before the first round of global sanctions were imposed during the Obama Administration.
