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Ashok Leyland is one of the oldest Indian commercial vehicle manufacturers who have very recently tried to enter the mainstream passenger vehicle market with their people carrier ‘Stile’. On the CV front, Ashok Leyland has been going great guns with the success of the Dost series and their sales registering double digit growth quarter after quarter.
Ashok Leyland Stile, based on the Evalia, has been targeted more towards the rural and/or the cab market to ferry a number of people comfortably over short distances which explains why the Stile has not been able to make inroads into the PV market. The Stile was developed in a joint venture with Nissan and launched in October 2013.
The Stile launch was closely followed by the ‘Boss’ series of intermediate commercial vehicles for Haulage between 9 to 13 tonnes of cargo. Ashok Leyland also launched the ‘Captain’ series of heavy duty trucks with a haulage capacity of 16 tonnes gross vehicle weight, to 49 tonnes gross trailer weight in January 2014. Ashok Leyland plans to launch 18 more versions in the calendar year 2014 to cover the entire range of haulers, tippers and trailers sold in the Indian market.
Ashok Leyland launched the ‘Partner’, a light commercial air-conditioned vehicle – a first for the Indian market on January 30, 2014. Earlier all air-conditioned LCVs had to be custom coach built from third party sources. They also launched the air conditioned passenger bus ‘MiTR’ – which when pronounced in Hindi means friend, a strategy to connect with the Indian buyer. These products have been developed in a joint venture with Nissan.
Optare plc, an associate of Ashok Leyland, was awarded the prestigious ‘Excellence in Technology’ award for the fast charging technology of its all-electric bus, the Optare Versa EV at the recently concluded 13th edition of the National Transport Awards 2013 in the UK.
With five launches in the last four months and 18 launches slated for the year 2014, we believe some new products to be showcased and launched at the Auto Expo 2014. So stay tuned as we cover all the action at the Auto Expo 2014, as it unfolds.
