Eicher and Volvo, on Monday, announced reincarnation of their mass market truck business with the unveiling of a new series of tucks, which promise to offer 5-10 per cent higher fuel efficiency than competition.
With these new trucks, VE Commercial Vehicle (VECV), an equal joint venture between Eicher Motors and Swedish truck major Volvo group, has signalled its intent to double its current market share of about 5 per cent in the next three years.
The Pro series
VECV, the third biggest player in the domestic medium and heavy duty truck industry, will offer a completely new product range, christened Pro series. Under the new series, there will be four categories of trucks, covering 5 to 49 tonne gross vehicle weight (GVW) range.
“We have built the foundation over the past few years, and are now ready to unleash real professional products, supported by professional sales and service network. We promise best-in-class fuel efficiency, better uptime and overall life-time profitability through Pro series trucks,” Siddhartha Lal, Managing Director and CEO, Eicher Motor, said here while unveiling 11 products that include trucks and buses .
The four categories of Pro series will include Pro1000 for 5-14 tonne GVW light and medium trucks, Pro3000 selling 9-14 tonne GVW medium duty trucks, Pro6000 selling 16-40 tonne GVW heavy trucks, tippers and trailers, and Pro 8000 series that will sell 25-49 tonne GVW slight premium heavy trucks, tippers and trailers.
The new heavy duty truck range will be powered by new generation engines adapted from the Volvo Group with power capacity of 180-280 hp. It also unveiled Skyline Pro buses, built on a new platform, with higher seats.
These Pro series trucks will target various application segments, including long-haul, goods distribution, parcel and courier and construction, among others.
The first set of trucks, possibly Pro 1000 series, will be launched in February, 2014, and, over the next 18 months, the company will launch other products in a phased manner.
VECV, which has revenue of over a billion dollar, will retain its existing ranges, including VE series, till the final roll-out of Pro series trucks
“India is aggressively investing in infrastructure. Improved roads and more effective logistics chains put new and higher demands on vehicles ,and that leads to new opportunities for Eicher,’’ said Joachim Rosenberg, Executive Vice-President, Group Trucks Sales and Marketing and JVs APAC, Volvo Group.
The joint venture has invested around Rs.1,800 crore in new projects, capacity, modernisation of facilities as well as products. It will invest another Rs.700 crore till 2014-end to meet the requirement of on-going projects such as engine plant, bus-body plant, and also for capacity expansion beyond 5,500 units a month to prepare for 2015 requirements.
(This correspondent was in Pithampur at the invitation of the company)
