Scania makes fully built buses for India

The potential market for luxury buses in India has prompted Scania Commercial India to get into fully built buses for the domestic market, according to Anders Grundstromer, Managing Director, Scania Commercial

Addressing a press conference to announce the delivery of a Scania Metrolink to a Chennai-based transport services provider, Parveen Travels, Grundstromer said “this is the first Metrolink to be fully built by Scania globally.”

The Metrolink range has also been specifically developed for India.

This distinction only reflects the nature of the growing market for buses and trucks here.

Apart from Scania, Mercedes and Volvo, cater to the luxury bus segment.

This market accounts for about 1 per cent of the total 50,000-unit demand annually. It is expected to grow to 5 per cent in as many years and double in the next five.

This expansion will be in tandem with the overall growth in demand to over 75,000 buses in about five years, said the MD. The luxury segment in trucks is also expected to match this trend.

The total truck demand is about 130,000 units and set to grow to about 300,000 units in the next 5-10 years. The growth in inter-city transportation, tourism, and urban development, that will drive public transport, will all cater to the demand for buses. Infrastructure growth will boost demand for trucks, he said.

Scania has set up a ₹250-crore production unit in Narsapur, about 45 km east of Bangalore, with a capacity of about 1,000 units a year.

It will deliver about 500 trucks and 180 buses this year with 80 of the buses built locally and the rest imported from Malaysia. Scania imports the drivetrain including engine, gear box and rear axle from Sweden.

Scania plans to launch a series of modern offerings for the market including a 12-metre city bus that runs on ethanol.

It is being tested in Nagpur and an 18-m articulated bus. Metrolink engines have a multi-fuel capacity and can run on diesel, ethanol and biogas, Grundstromer said.

Scania also inaugurated a modern workshop for SDR Auto Pvt Ltd, the authorised dealer for Scania trucks and buses in Tamil Nadu. Scania is strengthening its service network and has a parts warehouse in Bangalore which can supply spares overnight to major locations.