Ashok Leyland continues focusing on the success of its customers in line with its corporate philosophy of ‘Aapki Jeet Hamari Jeet’. The company’s new suite of future-ready ICVs, MDVs and bus products unveiled at this year’s Auto Expo are a welcome addition to its class-leading portfolio.
In a recent interview with MOTORINDIA, Mr. T. Venkataraman, Sr. Vice President, Global Buses, Ashok Leyland, discussed his company’s new products, Hybus and Sunshine, and how they fulfil the needs of its stake-holders and the general public and meet the Government norms. He said: “The Hybus is a very unique vehicle in the context of what is imminently required for the country today. We looked at what is the right product to bring in the city bus segment. City buses today cause a huge amount of pollution. The Hybus has an ultra-capacitor, because of which it recharges when the vehicle is braked. Especially designed for urban transport with start-stop cycles, it uses the diesel for starting the vehicle, while discharging happens during acceleration. For city conditions as in Delhi, this is a perfect application. It’s noiseless, doesn’t require any infrastructure with respect to electricity and doesn’t have any major change in technology given the fact that we can take the engine out and put in a CNG engine in its place. It is ready to plug in and play in the context of change in design of aggregates, but doesn’t need any additional infrastructure which an all-electric vehicle would require.”
Referring to Ashok Leyland’s new product for school children, the Sunshine, he said: “The agenda behind sunshine is essentially safety. We wanted to bring in a product which meets the requirement of every stake-holder and spoke to all the stake holders involved in the school bus segment which forms 30 per cent of our bus business. We interviewed the children, spoke to parents, to the school, and tried to understand what each one of them was looking for in the product. As the children are away the whole day, the parents are concerned about their safety and whereabouts. From the children’s perspective, they feel that going to school is a chore and are very tired by the end of the day, since some school buses are not airy and roomy enough. We thought we could create an environment with uncompromised hygiene in terms of using material with anti-microbial treatment and provide plenty of room for air circulation. Apart from this, we have several industry firsts on the safety front. The bus has the lowest fixed step height which will help children board it quickly and comfortably. Also, some features in terms of knowledge and information adding value to the product, as well as in terms of cost of ownership – information to the parents and SMS-based alerts – all of which have been taken care of to make the child look forward to going to school every day. It is a very unique product in a segment which is quite crowded, and we are confident of getting a good share of the market with it.”