Ashok Leyland Gears Up to Drive in New Range of Heavy Duty Trucks

Hinduja group flagship Ashok Leyland is gearing up to expand its diesel truck range as it remains optimistic for industry growth in the rest of the fiscal, according to company’s MD and CEO Shenu Agarwal.

He noted that the commercial vehicle major is working on improving its R&D resources to help it reduce the time to market and respond quickly to the changing market and regulatory requirements.

“Within the diesel range, we are preparing to soon launch a completely new range of heavy-duty trucks with power ratings of 320 and 360 horsepower. These new trucks are built with next-level of heavy-duty aggregates, delivering unmatched reliability,” Agarwal said in an analyst call.

These products would be fitted with six-cylinder engines, delivering highest peak torque in the respective segments, enabling customers best-in-class turnaround time and therefore more earnings per month, he added.

Agarwal stated that the company’s non-diesel portfolio is continuously expanding, with two models of light electric trucks, three models of MHCV electric trucks and several models and variants of electric buses already available commercially.

The company has also forayed into other greener technologies such as CNG, LNG and even hydrogen, he added.

“We are continuously augmenting our fully-built bus capacity to cater to the growing demand of fully-built buses. Our newest and most modern bus plant at Lucknow shall be inaugurated soon. After complete ramp-up of our Andhra Pradesh and Lucknow plants, we shall reach bus body-building capacity of 20,000 numbers-plus per year from that of roughly 12,000 at present,” Agarwal said.

Commenting on the second half of the current fiscal he noted that the company remains optimistic about the growth prospects of the commercial vehicle industry for both Medium and Heavy Commercial Vehicles (MHCV) and Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) segments.

“The LCV segment has already picked up on the back of GST rate cuts. We believe the MHCV industry would also remain buoyant in the second half, led by growth in broad-based consumption and increase in infrastructure activity,” Agarwal said.

On GST reforms, he stated that the rate rationalisation from 28% to 18% brought down the cost of owning new trucks and buses, while GST rate reduction in several other categories of goods is expected to increase the overall freight demand.