Thaindian News

Chennai, March 18 (IANS) Daimler India Commercial Vehicle Pvt Ltd Thursday commissioned a state-of-the-art test track for own use and said it would be let out later to component vendors and non-core competitors for testing their products.
“It is separate profit centre and will generate revenues,” Marc Llistosella, chief executive, told reporters here inaugurating the test track.

The 5.93-km test track is spread across 47 acre at the firm’s Oragadam plant complex near here.

Driving around the test track at 70 km speed, Aydogan Cakmaz, vice president (Product Engineering), told journalists: “The test track is designed taking into account the various road conditions that exist in India.”

The three-lane, high-speed track each 4.5 metre wide with super elevated curves is for driveline durability testing under loaded conditions, Cakmaz said.

Jochen Mast, deputy general manager (Testing Product Engineering), said the track could be let out to component vendors.

“That will happen only after testing our prototypes for the Indian market. It is only in the US we let out our test track for others and India will be the second country,” he told IANS.

Llistosella said the company has 6-49 tonne truck prototypes for the Indian market and will be disclosed over the next two years.

“We are spending Rs.1,200 crore on R&D (research and development) in understanding the Indian market and the Indian customer needs. This is nearly one-fourth of our Rs.4,400 crore investment planned in India,” he said.

Asked whether the company would be ready to let out the track for shooting movies, Mast said: “We haven’t done that. It has to be decided by the management.”