At the Auto Expo 2018, Tata Motors unveiled several new commercial vehicles (small, intermediate and large) along with their electric bus. Girish Wagh, President Commercial Vehicles and AK Jindal, head of engineering and electric vehicles told The Indian Express that while the commercial vehicles have witnessed a sharp revival and are set to grow on the back of demand from construction, steel, cement and mining sectors, the progress on electric buses will depend on the pace determined by the government. Excerpts: Commercial vehicle sales are seen as a barometer of the economy. How is the demand growing and which sectors have led to the recent pickup in demand? We have seen a good rebound in Q2 and Q3 of FY18 and the industry has grown by around 17 per cent. A lot of government action on the ground has led to rise in demand such as new projects on the road construction side, leading to significant uptick in throughput and secondly the implementation on overloading. While the regulation on overloading was always there, implementation has become stricter. Also, some of the end user sectors are growing well such as cement, steel, mining and demand is also growing as a result of rise in consumption. More than the GDP, another measure that is important for us is the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) and all these measures are rising, which means that we have more goods to transport and that has led to the increased demand. The demand has been growing across the board, apart from the passenger segment, which has contracted this year. It has not done so well because of two reasons — the buses are impacted by SQ buying and the smaller vehicles are impacted by permits. Where does your capacity utilisation stand ? Our capacity utilisation are quite good and that volume targets that we have for the last quarter that we are in, we should have very healthy capacity utilisation in the medium, intermediate and heavy LCVs. In small commercial vehicles also it is high in our Pantnagar plant but the capacity utilisation are not as high. How does the EV strategy fit in the commercial vehicles? The government is moving towards electric so we are also moving towards it. Some segments are very right for the EV strategy, but some will take time. Buses are the one as the government has also said that public transport should be done as quickly as possible. It has started for buses. The new FAME scheme includes EVs and bidding is in process in 11 cities under the scheme. How successful can electric commercial vehicles be, given the concern around range? Range will always be an issue for getting big trucks into electric, and therefore even in smaller commercial vehicles, it can make sense. So you can go for the lower range and the battery packs can be reduced. For batteries, we are looking at cell manufacturers and pack manufacturers.
