DICV gears up for 2017 with new gen BharatBenz trucks

Daimler India Commercial Vehicles, the wholly-owned arm of Daimler AG, is positioning itself to benefit from the shift to BS-IV emission norms this year with the launch of its new generation BharatBenz heavy-duty trucks.
The company is also looking to expand its export basket with the introduction of a new sub-nine tonne truck for overseas markets.
"While the market environment will continue to hold challenges for the industry (in 2017), we are planning to advance with our BharatBenz brand based on strong products, leading technologies and an even stronger focus on the customer," Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) Managing Director and CEO Erich Nesselhauf said in a statement.

DICV is expecting to benefit from the upcoming industry transition to the BS4 standard.
"With BharatBenz, we have the best technology in the market based on proven solutions, and we're fully ready as we have been selling BS4 vehicles since more than a year already," he said.
Feedback from customers of the company's "BS4 fleet of several hundred vehicles clearly tells us we are perfectly positioned for the transition", Nesselhauf added.

He further said: "A key growth driver for us will be the new generation of our BharatBenz heavy-duty trucks, which we are going to launch in the coming months. We have high expectations for this new product."

In 2016, BharatBenz had presented a new generation of its medium-duty trucks. This year, BharatBenz will complete the upgrade of its entire truck portfolio with the launch of its new-generation heavy-duty trucks in the segment between 16 and 49 tonnes GWV, which accounts for the larger portion of the brand's truck sales, the company said.
Last year, DICV sold 13,081 units of BharatBenz trucks as against 13,997 units in 2015 down 6.5 per cent.
"This development was due to a challenging market, which had turned negative in the second half of 2016 after a good first half," the company said.

On the export front, the company said it expects important growth momentum from a new sub-9tonne truck this year.
"With the launch of a third product line for exports in 2017 at DICV we will enter the next stage in the strategic collaboration of DICV and MFTBC - this successful journey we began in 2013 pays off day by day," said Marc Llistosella, President and CEO of Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation (MFTBC) and Head of Daimler Trucks Asia.
DICV will start production of this third truck product family in 2017. The new sub-9 tonne vehicles will initially be designated only for exports as FUSO brand variants, first customer vehicles will be rolled out in the first half of the year, it said.

Nesselhauf said DICV had kept focus on profitable growth in 2016, which has been a mixed year for the Indian CV industry at large.
"Thanks to our successful exports, we have been able to more than compensate current challenges in the domestic market. With new products in the pipeline, we are geared up for further growth in 2017," he said.