Mercedes invests Rs 50 cr for bus facility at Pune

Mercedes Benz India Ltd has invested Rs 50 crore for its new city bus manufacturing facility in Chakn near Pune and will produce two and three axle coaches from this plant. Mercedes will produce 900 buses per year. After long-distance inter city bus segment, Mercedes on Friday launched its low entry city bus in Pune. It integrates a captive body building unit in partnership with MCV within manufacturing facility in Chakan. It has Euro IV compliant engine with BlueTec diesel technology.

The 37-seater base version of the bus is priced at Rs 90 lakh ex-factory Pune. This is a joint investment between Mercedes and MCV. For India, Jalandhar based Sutlej Motors builds the bodies of the inter-city buses of Mercedes Benz. MCV has built over 15000 buses for Mercedes since 1995. The company has appointed Markus Villinger as the new head of Daimler Buses India, from 1 April 2012.

Speaking on this development, Hartmut Schik, head, Daimler Buses, said, "As to buses, the Indian market is the largest bus market in the world with 46,000 units sold in 2011 which is double the size of our traditional Western European market. Our production line at Pune plant combined with body building from our captive partner MCV. Over the next six months we expect almost the entire bus to will be manufactured locally."

Commenting on pricing, he said, "Though our prices are higher than the other bus manufacturers, the life cycle cost of Mercedes buses is much higher. These buses are fuel efficient, safe and durable. We have life cycle period of over 20 years which best in the industry." In future, Mercedes is aiming at nearly full localisation for body building.