8:04 am Trucks
Mercedes-Benz India Private Limited, the Indian arm of Daimler AG, is looking at a total capacity of 12,500 units per annum, including passenger and commercial vehicles at its upcoming manufacturing plant in Chakan.
“We are looking at an initial capacity of 10,000 passenger vehicles (two shifts) and 2,500 commercial vehicles, including buses and trucks,” said Piyush Arora, director technical, member of board of management, Mercedes-Benz India Private Limited.
He added that the capacity could be further expanded depending upon the demand.
“Our problem is to get more vehicles and not demand, as that is there,” said Wilfried Aulbur, managing director and chief executive officer, Mercedes-Benz India Private Limited on the sidelines of the rolling of the 20,000th Indian-made Mercedes-Benz from its existing plant in Pune on Wednesday. “The first model to roll out from here way back in 1995 was the E-class and the 20,000th car rolled out today is also an E-class, marking the success story of the product in the market,” said Aulbur. “It is also the 10,000th E-class to be sold in India,” he added.
The company has sold 1,094 cars within the first three months of 2008, as against 690 cars sold during the same period last year. In 2007, Mercedes-Benz had sold a total of 2,491 cars. As far as its Actros trucks are concerned, the company sold 156 trucks last year and this year, till now, 64 trucks have been sold. The assembling of Actros started last November.