By IANS,
Chennai : India’s leading bus and truck maker Ashok Leyland Ltd Monday said it was developing a new range of trucks with a new engine and new cabin.
“The modular platform, engine and the cabin will provide the necessary competitive edge for us and also offer good price-performance ratio for the buyers,” Ashok Leyland managing director R. Seshasayee told reporters here.
Asked about the cost advantage of the new product, he said: “There will certainly be advantage for the company as we will be dealing with limited number of vendors and parts. The customers will also benefit because of this. However, I am not in a position to quantify the cost advantage for the company.”
Under the new platform named as Unitruck, Ashok Leyland will roll out 16-49 tonne trucks from 2010.
The trucks will feature a range of gear boxes, with cost effective automatic and automated manual transmission as options on some models.
Unitruck models will also sport a new generation cabin initially before modular cabins replace them, Seshasayee said.
He added that the cabins in the export vehicles would have features that are entirely different from the vehicles sold in India.
He said Ashok Leyland’s 50:50 joint venture project with Finnish company Alteams to make high pressure diecasting aluminium products was progressing well.
“The plant will come up in Cheyyur near Chennai. Land acquisition is in progress,” Seshasayee added.