Daimler India Commercial Vehicles has now built over 20,000 BharatBenz and Fuso trucks at its plant in Chennai, south west India.
The wholly-owned Daimler subsidiary achieved the milestone two and a half years after the first BharatBenz heavy-duty truck. The milestone truck was a 2523C tipper.
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About half of the 20,000 locally produced vehicles were made in 2014, highlighting recent rapid growth.
The DICV plant in Chennai/Oragadam produces trucks and engines for the BharatBenz, Fuso and Mercedes-Benz brands. Since the start of production of heavy-duty trucks in June 2012, DICV raised production volume monthly. The product line grew by several variants of heavy-duty trucks, followed by medium-duty models in recent months.
BharatBenz now offers vehicles in the nine tonne to 49 tonne range and DICV also assembles the Mercedes-Benz Actros from CKD (completely knocked down) kits in Oragadam.
DICV added Fuso trucks to local in May 2013. These are for Asian and African growth markets; with Indonesia and Uganda being recently added. Under the umbrella of Daimler Trucks Asia, the company also works closely together with the Japanese subsidiary of Daimler, Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation (MFTBC).
The next step is BharatBenz- and Mercedes-Benz buses which will be made at a new manufacturing plant constructed within the existing premises of DICV. The bus plant covers 113,000 sq m and will be completed by the second quarter of 2015. It cost EUR50m and initial capacity will be 1,500 units a year which can be expanded to 4,000.
The DICV plant will be the only Daimler Truck plant worldwide that manufactures three brands of trucks and buses under one roof.
