First Bharat Benz truck to be rolled out in September

Chennai:

The 400 acre state-of-the art Daimler India Commercial Vehicles plant in Oragadam will roll out the first Bharat Benz truck on September, according to managing director and chief executive officer of Daimler India Commercial Vehicles Marc Llistosella.

Addressing a press conference along with chairman of the board of Management of Daimler AG and head of Mercedes Benz Dieter Zetsche, member of the board Andreas Renschler, he said the Rs 4,400 crore plant will have an initial production capacity of 36,000 units per year which will be later ramped up to more than 70,000 units per year.

The facility, which will roll out 17 variants by 2014, will focus on the Indian market. Stating that Orgadam-Chennai plant is the only Daimler plant which combines the Indian engineering with German and Japanese DNA under a single roof, Dieter Zetsche said Daimler India Commercial Vehicles is preparing for the promising Indian truck market which has developed into world’s third largest market with a volume of 330,000 vehicles in weight classes of five to 49 tonnes in 2011.

Stating that the 1400 workforce is primarily Indian, Llistosella said the focus of localization has resulted in more than 40 per cent of suppliers being located within a 40km radius of the plant. “Overall, BharatBenz will have a localization of 85 per cent and the target is 90 per cent,” he added.

Andreas Renschler said that the truck is 10 per cent more fuel efficient that the conventional truck and has been test driven 4.5 million km making it more durable and efficient. He said the target is to have 70 dealers in 12 states.