Ups the ante with 4 new products
Ashok Leyland stole the limelight by launching four new products at the show, two of them concept vehicles and the other two ready-to-sell ones. All four products were in different segments and received excellent response from visitors at the show. With a right mix of trucks and buses, the vehicles once again demonstrated AL’s excellent engineering capability and its unique skill to come up with innovations which are best suited for the Indian market and local customers.
Speaking on the new line-up of vehicles, Mr. Vinod Dasari, Managing Director, Ashok Leyland, said, “We are extremely proud of our new range of vehicles – each of which has been designed with precision and attention, and represents the best of our technological expertise and sophisticated R&D capabilities. Our products have always been recognized for their reliability and ruggedness, innovation, and market-appropriateness. Our new line-up at the Delhi Auto Expo 2016 will further reflect these values. We are focusing on sustainable mobility solutions for a new world, and are confident each of these will address a specific customer need and help them grow their business and be successful.”
4940 Euro 6 truck
With BS IV yet to hit pan India and many truck variants yet to be migrated to BS IV, Ashok Leyland showcased a Euro 6 tractor 4940. The product was an eye-catcher at Auto Expo for two reasons – it is the first indigenously developed Euro 6 truck in India and it came at a time when Mr. Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways and Shipping, had announced that India would leapfrog to Euro 6 emission norms by 2020. By 2020, approx $5 billion is expected to be invested by oil companies. Not only with these companies but a high level of technological upgradation is required in auto manufacturing as well. Ashok Leyland was in the forefront when emission levels were upgraded in the past. With its indigenous technology the company was able to achieve this time and again and now has come up with the Euro 6 version of its flagship engine range Neptune. An 8L engine producing 400hp and 1600Nm of torque is the engine of the talk here and that is powering the 4940 Euro6 tractor. Though the company hasn’t revealed the complete technical details on how the E6 is achieved, Dr. N. Saravanan Senior Vice President, Product Development, Ashok Leyland, said that could be an Indianised version of achieving it using Selective Catalytic Reduction. Euro 6 norms demand a dramatic reduction in NOx and particulate matter – as low as one-tenth compared to the existing Euro 3 norms. Achieving these norms require a significant leap in technological capability, and a strong dose of Indian ingenuity and Ashok Leyland has done this along with Albonair.
Hybus
Six years back, at 2010 Auto Expo Ashok Leyland launched erstwhile India’s first -plugin CNG hybrid bus. Now in this year’s show the OEM came up with a more advanced and next version of CNG Hybrid. Being Hybrid, Hybus helps reduce emissions, and offers significant efficiencies in operating costs. Especially designed for urban transport with start-stop cycles, ultracapacitors provide the diesel motor with necessary power for movement. This environment-conscious vehicle combines international standards of comfort and convenience, and offers you a bus in a class of its own. With no clarity on how the next wave of urban buses would be, Ashok Leyland is pushing itself to offer various options and whichever product granulates that can be taken forward.
Hybus uses ultracapacitors to store energy. Unlike batteries, this is stored electrostatically on the surface of the material and does not involve chemical reactions. Given their fundamental mechanism, ultracapacitors can be charged quickly, leading to a very high power density, and do not lose their storage capabilities over time. Ultracapacitors can last for millions of charge / discharge cycles without losing energy storage capability. Also it charges much quickly making it more sensible to charge when the buses are stopping in bus stops. Though the energy density is much lower than batteries for a duty cycle like city buses, ultracapacitors or supercapacitors may be a preferred choice.
Guru
The Indian truck market is maturing fast with lots of application-specific products like as in Europe. Earlier we used to have a same product going to various applications without considering the requirements of the intended application. Now with more demands from customers, manufacturers are working on application specific products to tap and fill every white space in their product portfolio.
In line with this, Guru is the new range of ICV trucks from Ashok Leyland. Guru is developed specifically for rated load and volume goods segment in the 12T and 13T segments, though a scale down version is still possible. Developed from the successful Boss platform this offers host of features and is priced competitively. With a load body that offers the maximum volumetric capacity, it can carry a higher volume of cargo.
With the Boss and Ecomet doing its duty already in the similar ICV segments, Ashok Leyland is clear that Guru will find its own space with targeted customers and specific applications. The Guru variant on display had Aluminum alloy wheels, and aluminum load body fitments that further complement its payload capacity, though the road going vehicles may not have the same. Guru which was displayed had a new 3 Cylinder H Series engine.
This is basically a scaled down version of existing 4 cylinder engines, and may be used in the next wave of ICV trucks going for specific applications, as informed by Mr. Anuj Kathuria, President Operations & Project Planning, Ashok Leyland, Service costs are kept low with increased warranty, affordable AMC, better service intervals and lower lube consumption.
Guru has an aesthetically looking front facia with LED running lights called the “Signature Lights”, and an offset mounted Ashok Leyland name badge. The cabin though with not much of change in BIW, its front looks are completely changed giving it a very different, fresh and appealing look. The cabin comes with a sleeper provision with the seats down. In order to avoid electrical short-circuits, Guru comes with an isolator switch which could be a first in its category.
The truck which will hit the roads in a couple of months is one of the quickest developments from Ashok Leyland, credit for which goes to the young team of engineers at the company.
Sunshine
Ashok Leyland has its good presence in HCV buses and has wide acceptance for its products. In the case of ICV buses the OEM needs to battle hard with its competitors often to retain its share. Competition is very hard and has established itself in its category, though now Ashok Leyland has reached a market share of ~20% in this segment.
School bus is an important segment in ICV buses and its more demanding in terms of features, comfort and pricing. Ashok Leyland has Lynx Smart and Lynx Strong (more details in the same issue) in the school bus segment with various seating options. Now complementing them is the new arrival Sunshine.
Sunshine is a newly developed school bus keeping in mind its most precious end users, children, in this case. In fact the bus was unveiled by a group of school children, and that shows how the bus is centred around. The chassis is all new in its dimensions. The bus has the lowest fixed step height which will help children board it quickly and comfortably. The front overhang is pretty less making it convenient to negotiate narrow roads where the school buses run to pick up children. Similarly, a lot of work is done on its body, like higher saloon interior yet lower bus height, making the vehicle more airy also, the windows are larger in dimensions.
Sunshine has gone above and beyond the basic regulatory requirements by making it rollover complaint and frontal crash protected. Further, Sunshine incorporates i-ALERT, the state-of-the-art tracking software, through which parents can monitor their child’s movements and location, on a real-time basis. The embedded software will provide parents with pick-up and drop-off alerts, while school operators can use the system to monitor the well-being of children inside the bus and also track the health of the vehicle. Sunshine has taken special care for the comfort of children. It comes with a host of features which are industry-first, such as the artistically designed and comfortable, what they call, Happy Seats, anti-bacterial interiors, etc.
To sum up, Ashok Leyland has once again presented a host of exciting new products for customers to look forward to. With the country’s CV segment becoming increasingly competitive, the home-grown truck and bus maker seems perfectly geared up for any challenge that might be thrown up against it. It would be interesting to see what kind of impact a stunning product like the 4940 Euro 6 tractor could have on Ashok Leyland’s business and brand image. Let us wait and watch.