Truck and bus maker Ashok Leyland (ALL) on Saturday unveiled a new platform ‘U Truck’, which would address new emission norms, offer product flexibility and customisation.
With BS-IV emission norms scheduled to come into effect from April 1, all commercial vehiclemakers have begun to upgrade platforms — Tata Motors has already announced the launch of a ‘World Truck’ platform in a similar endeavour.
ALL’s managing director R Seshasayee termed this launch as the company’s transformation, saying all Leyland products would migrate to this platform in the next 18 months. In all, 25 products would be launched on ‘U-Truck’ platform across 11 power ratings, three speed options and a range of cab options. The new platform is positioned on the ‘value’ plank and will not host either premium or niche products.
But Seshasayee made it clear that there won’t be any additional capital expenditure on capacity expansion till 2012-13, by when the total installed production capacity would reach 1.5 lakh units a year. The much delayed Uttarakhand facility is being commissioned by March 31 this year and this will bring in 50,000 unit capacity.
Seshasayee said products on the new platform will be initially produced at Uttarakhand and also partly at the existing Hosur plant. After the economic slowdown last year, ALL had reduced capex by Rs 1,300 crore to Rs 2,000 crore for 2009-12.
The company also launched a tractor and a tipper from the U-Truck platform which are BS-IV compliant. All new products would be either BS-III or BS-IV compliant and can be upgraded to BS-V.
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