Mumbai: Volvo, the world's second-largest truck maker, will soon renew its global rivalry with top player Daimler on the Indian roads through its joint venture with Eicher Motors.
Even as Daimler India gears up to launch its BharatBenz range of trucks within a few months, the Volvo-Eicher venture is readying a whole new range of trucks right from 5 tonne to 49 tonne and above with new platforms, engines and cabins.
"We want to make a big breakthrough in the heavy duty trucks," Siddhartha Lal, MD of Eicher Motors, said. "We have new engines from Volvo's global platform and we will have full new modern truck product range powered by these engines," he added.
While Lal declined to share the specifics, industry insiders said the new trucks will be based on Volvo's UD platform (from Nissan Diesel) and will be priced at a 10% premium to the existing range.
The new range is expected to help VE Commercial Vehicles, the joint venture between Volvo and Eicher, expand its presence in medium and heavy truck segments (25-49 tonne), where the company has minimal share. VECV showcased its entire range-which will take 2-3 years to hit the road-to dealers and suppliers in May. Industry sources say they will match BharatBenz trucks in quality and cost parameters.
One of the suppliers working on the project says the new Volvo range will offer stiff competition to Tata Motors Prima and Ultra trucks as well as Ashok Leyland's U Truck. Industry experts say Eicher's attempt to enter the heavy-duty truck space in 2005-06 did not get a good response from the market and that's how the tie-up with Volvo came about four years ago. "With Volvo's global platform and engines, VECV could now have a compelling product proposition in the core medium and heavy duty truck market, which will bridge the critical gap in the portfolio and could make the company a serious player," V G Ramakrishnan, senior director, Frost & Sullivan said.
VECV has already invested 700 crore in the business and it has lined up another 1,000 crore for the next few years, which will go into R&D, engine manufacturing facility, bus body building plant and new paint shop. Lal, the company MD, said VECV targets 15% share in the Indian heavy-duty truck market by 2015, up from 3.4% now. It has 11% share in the overall truck market, thanks to 31% share in the light duty and medium duty segment of 5-12 tonne.
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