Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV), the Indian subsidiary of the German global truck maker Daimler AG, today unveiled a range of trucks under BharatBenz brand to be manufactured at their Greenfield plant located near Chennai.
The company introduced its new range spanning 9 to 49 tonnes capacity here today. Over the next few days, 2,000 plus customers, dealers, financiers will get to preview the trucks to be rolled out of their plant from April 18 and available commercially by third quarter of 2012.
Mr Marc Llistosella, CEO and MD of (DICV), said, “These trucks are an outcome of nearly six years of research and development and hard work leading to the roll out of the first batch of BharatBenz trucks. With an overall investment of Rs. 4,400 crore, the plant is one of the biggest Greenfield investments outside Europe that Daimler has ever made.”
Mr Llistosella said it is proposed to introduce three modes in the third quarter and this would be followed by the introduction of the entire range of product portfolio consisting of 17 models over next 20 months.
During the event, BharatBenz range — designed to suit Indian operations — displayed its Light Duty Trucks (LDT) and Heavy Duty Trucks (HDT) in the 9, 12, 25, 31 and 49 tonnes category and featured various usages and applications. These include cold storage, cement and concrete movement, mining and heavy duty haulage.
The modular nature of the plant, with a capacity of 36,000 trucks per annum, could be increased by adding another shift, depending on requirements. “We may consider exports in 2013,” he said.
With a localisation of 85 per cent, the company plans to make it competitive.