Daimler starts light truck production in India

Moneycontrol Bureau

Daimler India Commercial Vehicles, a unit of world's largest truck maker Daimler, has started production of its 9 tonne and 12 tonne light duty trucks at its plant in Oragadam near Chennai. Bharat Benz is the newest global truck maker to enter the Indian market, dominated by Tata Motors, which sells 60% of all trucks and Ashok Leyland sells around 20%. Last month, Daimler had launched three heavy duty trucks, based on the Mercedes-Benz Axor platform, while the light trucks are based on Fuso Canter, Daimler's brand based out of Japan. The Oragadam manufacturing plant has a capacity of 36,000 units for heavy and light trucks. Production of the heavy trucks had already started. The company has plans to launch 14 more models over next 17 months in the 7-49 tonne range, it said last month, after launching the heavy trucks. In the first phase, Bharat Benz trucks will be sold and serviced over a network of 17 dealerships, which will go up to 42 locations by end of 2012 and by 2013, Bharat Benz dealers will be located across 108 locations, the company said. Daimler claims its trucks have lowest cost of ownership and are 10% more fuel efficient than the existing products in the market.