Thaindian News

Chennai, March 18 (IANS) Daimler India Commercial Vehicle Pvt Ltd, the 100 percent Indian subsidiary of German automobile giant Daimler AG, Thursday said it is setting up a plant near here to roll out 36,000 trucks by 2012.
“We will start with making 25-49-tonne trucks followed by 9-12 tonnes trucks. We have developed prototypes of the trucks for the Indian market which will be tested on the test tracks built here,” Marc Llistosella, the company’s chief executive, told reporters after inaugurating a test track at its Oragadam plant complex near here.

According to him, the plant coming up on around 400 acres will be modular in nature so that production capacity can be increased easily to 75,000 units in the second phase.

“The total investment over a period of five years will be Rs.4,400 crore,” he said while declining to share the phase-wise investment outlay.

With 86 percent local content, Llistosella said the trucks will be priced competitively in the Indian market.

“We will outsource the engines for the light and medium duty trucks from an Indian manufacturer while the engines for the heavy duty vehicles will be made at our plant here. We have the entire range of transmission lines,” he said.

The import content in the trucks will be 12-14 percent.

Llistosella also said Daimler India was open to have joint venture partners in India provided “the new joint venture partner makes business sense. The partner should add value to the venture.”

Two-wheeler major Hero group had initially joined hands with Daimler for the truck plant but later withdrew when the global meltdown happened.

“For Hero it was a new business and were shaken by the impact of the recession that happened in Europe. Hence the disengagement was mutual,” Llistosella said.

He said the company will partner with players in the information technology, logistics and financial services sectors, component suppliers and dealer groups.