Mercedes-Benz India to focus on heavy-duty trucks
08 Sep 2009
Mercedes-Benz India is planning to launch over-dimensional-cargo (ODC) vehicles and long-haulage trucks that can carry up to 240 tonnes in India soon, the company's managing director and chief executive Wilfried Aulbur told newspersons in Kolkata.
''We are looking at niche segments in India. With luxury car sales plummeting, we are focusing on the commercial vehicles segment very strongly,'' he said.
As an example, he added that Mercedes-Benz will be supplying 250 Actros trucks to Soumya Mining at a price of Rs144 crore. Currently, Soumya operates in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland, Orissa and Maharashtra.
Actros trucks now operate across 25 mines in seven states. Around 25 per cent of these trucks are assembled and localised in India, Aulbur said.
''We are in the process of preparing a proposal for the Ministry of Defence in India to supply some of our vehicles, like G-Wagon and Unimog. Some of our defence sector vehicles were used by the Canadian army to fight the Taliban,'' he added.
The company is also targeting the irrigation segment in Andhra Pradesh and is in talks with contractors for selling its trucks for the purpose.