The Hindu Business Line : Daimler re-enters commercial vehicle space; no truck with Tatas

Back alone
DCIL has acquired 100 acres of land for a greenfield unit at Chakan.

The company will begin assembling two variants of tipper trucks.

Our Bureau

Pune, June 27 The three pointed star, trade mark of luxury carmaker DaimlerChrysler, would soon make its reappearance on the commercial vehicle map of the country and this time, without the Tatas in tow.

The last of the Tata Mercedes Benz trucks sporting it, rolled off the assembly line of Tata Motors’ vehicle plant at Jamshedpur back in 1969 — the year when Daimler’s technical collaboration with the Tatas ended. The decks have now been cleared for its re-entry with the company receiving a ‘no objection certificate’ from India’s top truck maker, Tata Motors Ltd, in which Daimler owns 6.8 per cent stake, the company said in a statement.

“This is necessary if a foreign company with an equity stake greater than 3 per cent in a domestic company would like to start it’s own operations,” Mr Wilfried Aulbur, Chief Executive of DaimlerChrysler India (DCIL), said. It has been nearly two long years since the company first mentioned it at an automotive conference in New Delhi.

The company will begin assembling two variants of tipper trucks to mark its debut into this segment — the Actros 4840 and its smaller version the 4040. Around 60 Completely Built Units (CBU) of the two have been sold in the country last year, a company spokesperson said.

“DaimlerChrysler plans not only to import complete vehicles, but to assemble semi-knocked down Mercedes-Benz trucks in India in the near future,” a statement issued by the company said.

DCIL has acquired 100 acres of land for a greenfield manufacturing facility at Chakan and is investing around Rs 275 crore in setting it up. The production of all its vehicles, including assembly of trucks, is expected to shift here once the plant goes on stream.

A company spokesperson said that the work of levelling the ground was in progress and production of cars was expected to commence from early 2009. The new facility will also be used to assemble its range of trucks.

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