Daimler India Commercial
Vehicles Pvt. Ltd, the wholly
owned Daimler subsidiary,
has been completed
the construction of its new
state-of-the-art production plant
at Oragadam near Chennai in a
record time of about 24 months.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J.
Jayalalithaa inaugurated the
160-hectare DICV plant in the
presence of members of the
Daimler AG board of management.
The facility, which will
manufacture the BharatBenz
brand of trucks, also includes an
integrated research and development
centre and a state-ofthe-
art test track.
The plant is one of only three
Daimler truck plants worldwide
to combine truck assembly and
components production at one
location. The total investment of
DICV in the facility is
4, 400
crore (over €700 million). The
start of production of the Bharat-
Benz heavy-duty trucks are
scheduled for the third quarter
of 2012.
The plant has an initial production
capacity of 36,000 units
per year and is designed to allow
an increase up to more than
70,000 commercial vehicles per
year. The plant will initially
manufacture 25-tonne trucks
that will roll out for the Indian
market in September followed
by the 31-tonne model.
In Chennai, Dr. Dieter Zetsche,
Chairman, Daimler AG, and
Head, Mercedes-Benz Cars,
explained, "Our new Oragadam-
Chennai plant shares Daimler's
stringent quality standards with
its sister plants around the world
and is unique at the same time. It
is the only Daimler plant in the
world that houses products
which combine Indian engineering
with German and Japanese
DNA under a single roof. This
way, we are optimally positioning
ourselves for one of the world's
strongest and fastest-growing
truck markets."
Andreas Renschler, Member,
Daimler Board, responsible for
Daimler Trucks and Daimler
Buses, emphasised, "Our worldwide
production network and our
global research and development
efforts enable us to develop,
manufacture, and sell trucks in
India, for India. We do all of this
in close proximity to our customers,
for our customers."
The BharatBenz trucks segment
currently accounts for 4
per cent of all trucks in India,
but this figure is expected to
rise to almost 80 per cent by
2020. With a product portfolio
of 17 BharatBenz commercial
vehicles by 2014, DICV is
preparing for the promising
Indian truck market, which has
developed into the world's
third largest market with a volume
of more than 330,000
vehicles in the weight classes
of 5 to 49 tonnes in 2011.
Marc Llistosella, CEO and
Managing Director, DICV,
declared, "Our focus on localisation
has resulted in more
than 40 per cent of our suppliers
being located within a 40-
km radius of the plant. Overall,
our BharatBenz trucks will
have a localisation rate of 85
per cent in India."