Tata Motors have launched two commercial vehicles in Mumbai this week. With the launch of the factory built luxury intercity bus Divo,which has a Cummins 285 HP engine mated to a six-speed overdrive gearbox for good fuel efficiency. Tata intends to take on the Mercedes and Volvo with this intercity bus. Along with Divo Tata Motors re-launched the Starbus Ultra equipped with a 497 HP engine, which has been mated to a six-speed gearbox with cable shift mechanism and overdrive. This is an intra-city transport vehicle and is available in deluxe, luxury, school and standard variants.
The luxury long-distance Divo BS III will come at a price of Rs.66 lakh (ex-showroom, Thane) and Starbus Ultra BS III will come at Rs.15 lakh (ex-showroom, Thane) onwards. President, CVBU (Commercial Vehicle Business Unit), Tata Motors, Ravi Pisharody very positively admitted that with the combined launch of two of its latest commercial vehicle will be beneficial for the company in the high end segment. Re-launch of an already successful model of Starbusand the launch of a new model will put the company into a new era where uptil now they only built and sold chassis, but now with these CV (commercial vehicles) they have entered into the manufacturing of fully factory built body units. The company is aiming to sell close to 150 units of Divo each year. The design of Divo is done by Spanish firm Hispano Carrocera which is a completely owned subsidiary of Tata Motors.
The launch of an intercity bus Divo and re-launch of the intra-city bus Starbus will give a very fierce competition to two of the foreign companies who are already in the high end luxury coach segment of multiple axles, Mercedes and Volvo. Tata being the oldest and reliable CV (commercial vehicle) manufacturer because of its multiple sales and service centers all across the nation, will become the first choice of the commercial vehicle operators who may have a few of the Mercedes and Volvo in their fleet.But majority of the fleet will consist of Tata Motor’s vehicle. The company with its vast experience in the manufacturing and after sale service has another added feature which will definitely beat its foreign competitors, the spare. Spare parts are widely used in the CV all over the globe, because their wear and tear ratio is more since they are used on a regular basis every day, compared to personal vehicle. With Tata Motors, they are always well stocked with the spare parts, it doesn’t matter if it is a small bolt or a complete axle or a whole gear-box assembly. Even if something runs out of stock it is a matter of time before they get it for their customers from the factory. With these foreign companies, the problem of servicing and spare will be sort of a challenge to deal with, thus if we get to see more of Tata on the highways, this would be one of the main reason.
