VE Commercial Vehicles (VECV) believes its new 14.5 tonne Eicher 11.14 E2plus, a “heavy duty truck at medium duty pricing” that it officially launched last fortnight in Pune, is the game-changer that will finally transform it from bit-part player to a “strong number two” in the Indian commercial vehicle industry in the coming years.
The model targets the 9.5 tonne payload category, promising the fuel efficiency advantages of Eicher’s successful medium duty platform to a segment that for decades was served by heavier, and thirstier, 16 tonne trucks, according to G. Sekar, senior vice-president (sales & marketing) for Eicher-brand vehicles.
Following the VE-series heavy duty vehicles, which built on Eicher’s own developments and incorporated engineering input from Volvo, the company is working together with group affiliate UD Trucks from Japan
on a makeover of the E2 light and medium duty (LMD) series, of which the 11.14 E2plus represents the upper end.
At the same time, the VE series too will get further upgrades, with cabins (including instrumentation and trim), and gearboxes sourced, where appropriate, from other Volvo group brands including UD and Renault, Sekar told Autocar Professional.
VECV, which sold around 49,000 Eicher vehicles in all classes 2011, is banking on these two series to take it to its 2015 sales target of 100,000 trucks and buses. The company also showcased, for the first time, the “HD” version of its Terra 25 three-axle tipper for light mining that incorporates a Hendrickson heavy-duty bogie suspension rated at 26 tonnes plus 15 percent overload in place of the bell-crank suspension on the Terra 25.
The company counts Maharashtra and Gujarat (in that order) as its biggest markets, and sales of its heavy duty trucks are the “highest” in Mumbai and Maharashtra, according to Sekar. To boost this momentum in Pune, in which it claims a share of 20 percent for LMD trucks and 35 percent for LMD buses, the company has called in its number one dealer partner countrywide, Talwar Auto Garages (TAG).
TAG, headquartered in Hyderabad, has been an Eicher dealer from the inception of the company, and sold the first Canter truck produced under the erstwhile Eicher Mitsubishi joint venture. With three showrooms and six service workshops across Telangana, it has been Eicher’s largest selling dealer in the country for the last 18 years consecutively.
It is the only truck dealer countrywide that services more than 100 trucks everyday. Its Patancheru facility, which opened last year, is the largest service workshop in the country with 37 working bays. It also Eicher’s spare parts distributor for all of Andhra, and is determined to bring its same level of service that has delighted customers in that state to the Pune market, according to MD Saral Talwar.
In Pune the company already has a sales office and workshop in Akurdi and is presently operating a container workshop on the Moshi–Chakan section of NH50 till its own 60,000sq.ft. workshop on the Chakan–Talegaon road, which will have three bays, is up and running in November.
Meanwhile, it has also taken over an existing dealer’s workshop in Tathawade on the Mumbai–Bangalore bypass, and is at work revamping the six-bay facility in line with Eicher corporate guidelines in time for a 1 September (re)opening.
This latter facility will eventually shift to a massive 120,000sq.ft.premises including a 20-bay workshop in Ravet, further up NH4 towards the Mumbai expressway, which Talwar expects to be thrown open by early next year. At that time, Saral promises, this will be Eicher’s best 3S facility in the country.
The Talwar name is synonymous with service, according to Sunil Talwar, Saral’s father and chairman of the group that contributes around 7 percent of Eicher’s total domestic sales and has earned the brand a consistent share of up to 64 percent in the LMD market in Andhra Pradesh. “I am going to prove this in Pune,” he declared. “This is my commitment.”
ELIOT LOBO