Commercial vehicles industry to perform well this year: Tata Motors’ Girish Wagh

Along with the launch of the country’s first CNG-powered Medium and Heavy Commercial Vehicle (M&HCV) range of trucks, the company also rolled out a new series of advanced intermediate and light commercial vehicle (I&LCV) tippers and trucks.

Besides, it also introduced Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) and new features in its range of Prima, Signa and Ultra trucks.

After two years of downturn in the commercial vehicle industry, the previous fiscal logged 22 per cent volume growth over FY21, said Wagh.

“The CV industry seems to be on an upside now. Various indicators such as fleet utilisation or freight rates or even the transporters confidence index that we track every quarter, seem to be doing pretty well,” he said.

He noted that the government’s push for infrastructure is creating good demand for tipper trucks.

The bus segment, which saw a low (in terms of volumes) FY20 and FY21, saw good demand coming in from the school segment towards the end of the second quarter of the previous fiscal and also a good beginning in the employee transport segment.

“That good beginning has also flown into intermediate and light small commercial vehicles to the first quarter of this fiscal with the travel segment also getting added to it,” Wagh stated.

“So overall, we see all the segments, whether M&HCV, intermediate and light small commercial vehicles (and) even the passenger (bus) segment are doing well. I am pretty optimistic that the CV industry should do well this year,” he said.

Wagh said that the new truck launches address the growing need for safer transportation with ADAS offering collision mitigation system, lane departure warning, electronic stability control, driver alerts and tyre pressure monitoring.

“They also provide cleaner mobility solutions with a richer offering of alternate fuel powertrains. Every aspect of these trucks has been purposefully augmented to cater to varied duty cycles and special applications,” he said.