Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) has announced that it is ready to meet the BS-VI norms ahead of the April 2020 deadline. DICV claims to have received BS-VI certification in July 2019. The company has invested Rs 500 crore to localise the Euro-VI technology for India. Moreover, DICV claims to develop new facilities, introduce over 1000 new parts and will complete 2-million kilometres of testing before introducing the new product.
In an effort to keep the price in check, DICV has achieved a localisation rate of over 80 per cent on its products. Depending on the availability of BS VI fuel in India, DICV will officially launch its upgraded range of BS-VI trucks and buses in first quarter of 2020. DICV claims to start exporting the OM926 engine series internationally sometime by 2021/22. The current facility in Oragadam is the only Daimler location worldwide which produces engines, transmissions, trucks and buses catering to four brands – BharatBenz, FUSO, Mercedes-Benz and Freightliner.
Ahead of introducing the BS-VI products in the Indian market, DICV is reportedly gearing up its after-sales network with learnings from other markets. These competencies will be incorporated into training modules at its dealerships, which now spread across India with over 200 customer touchpoints nationwide.
Speaking on the occasion, Satyakam Arya, Managing Director and CEO, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV), said, “Daimler’s experience of already bringing 1.4 Million Euro VI trucks and buses on the roads means we are easily ready to transition our Bharat Benz trucks and buses to BSVI by the April 2020 deadline. With this head start, we will begin exporting India-built trucks by 2021/2022.” The transition to BS-VI will open more opportunities to export fully-built vehicles, engines and parts to countries like Mexico, Chile and Brazil that will soon migrate to similar emission norms.
Speaking on the industry slowdown, Satyakam Arya further revealed that the company is anticipating a 10-15 per cent drop in sales in the year 2020. The drop in sales are attributed to liquidity crunch, increase in vehicle prices and GST. Arya also pointed out that the country requires better policy for scrapping of older vehicles and promote use of safer commercial vehicles.
