Competition in the premium bus segment is all set to intensify with Swedish automobile maker Scania close to rolling out buses from its facility near Bangalore. “Chassis production and structure fabrication have started,” Scania Commercial Vehicles India Director, Sales, Sivakumar.V said, adding “in a few weeks, the buses will roll out”. The plant, with an investment of around Rs.300 crore, was inaugurated last year and manufactures trucks. Buses from the facility would help Scania build on the “positive customer response” to the made for India luxury inter-city and charter travel buses it was importing from a production facility in Malaysia. “We have an order book of 200 plus for the buses,” Mr. Sivakumar said, listing the fleet management system that provided real time performance of the vehicle and the drivers as an important feature.
Noting that the plant has a capacity to produce 2,500 trucks and 1,500 buses, he said the company was looking to close this year with a combined sale of 700 vehicles. “Our intent is to keep pace with the growth in the market… expect around 10 per cent in the next year,” he said. Scania is present in both on and off road truck segments.
Scania, with dealers in all the southern States, Maharashtra and Gujarat, would be opening a dealership in Goa soon. By this year-end, it would expand to all the States in the north and central parts of the country. Simultaneously, the company was working on buses run on ethanol and bio-gas.
It was in discussions with the Karnataka government on setting up a bio gas project that will supply fuel to city buses.
On the ethanol project, he said, the project was to run the buses on 95 per cent ethanol and 5 per cent additive.
