-By K. Gopalakrishnan
I am no expert in testing trucks. But having driven many of the Indian and European trucks, I can say that Ashok Leyland has a winner in “U-Truck”. I had the opportunity to drive the new range of trucks at the AL test facility in Chennai and found them very impressive. Ashok Leyland has leap-frogged technology and has designed and developed a product which will set standards in the Indian commercial vehicle industry.
Mr. R. Seshasayee, Managing Director, Ashok Leyland, says: “U-Truck anticipates and will continue to answer the changing needs of the market. It is not a niche product but a vehicle for mass migration of customers to a superior experience”.
The U-Truck will be manufactured at the new state-of-the-art facility at Pantnagar which has a capacity to manufacture 50, 000 trucks per annum. Initial units will be rolled out of the Hosur II facility, adds Mr. Seshasayee.
Mr. Rajive Saharia, Executive Director - Sales & Marketing, Ashok Leyland, said: “The U Truck series will be unveiled at the Auto Expo and will be progressively launched, starting from April 2010. We have lined up 25 different models in the U Truck range, and all these models will be launched within 18 months starting from April 2010”.
The U Truck range will comprise the complete range of trucks from 16 to 49 tonne which includes haulage trucks, tippers and tractors. The new range will eventually replace the existing range of trucks offered by Ashok Leyland.
The U Truck project was a complete shift in the way we started looking at the market and customers, says Mr. B.Venkat Subramaniam, Special Director - Future Vehicles Program, Ashok Leyland Ltd. “Currently we have a range of trucks which are typically built on to a standard chassis and then developed for a specific solution. Even though we have a wide range of products, it is still not very comprehensive to address the needs of our customers. The U-Truck is a complete shift in the way we started addressing the customer needs. We want to offer our customers a product which is completely customised to the application for which the truck will be used. Also the U Truck range has been fuelled by our own ambitions to grow, to enter new markets and cater to customers whom we are not catering to right now. That’s why we have developed a new platform of trucks that is entirely modular to build and therefore much easier to customise and deliver retaining the DNA of Ashok Leyland trucks which is rugged, reliable and fuel efficient. The U-Truck range will be contemporary, competitive and future ready products and will transform the customer needs”.
Positioning of the U-Truck
The name U-Truck comes from the company’s tagline “Engineering your tomorrows”. It’s the ‘your’ in the middle which stands for ‘U’ and this in turn signifies the customer.
Mr. Saharia says: “The mission behind the development of the U Truck was to offer customers an opportunity to mass-migrate into a future truck, which is ready to deliver a far superior experience. It is leading the customer’s needs, and on that delivering a better experience. While doing this we are not trying to create a niche segment or a high-end product. This is a product which will be offered to the entire range of customers. It will address our entire range from 16 to 49 tonnes. The U truck range will be affordable and ensure higher return on investment for our customers”.
Ashok Leyland is planning to launch 25 new models under the U Truck range in the first 18 months starting from April next. The reason for choosing this date is purely to match the emission norms. The U Truck series will cover the entire range from tractor trailers, tippers and haulage vehicles.
“In the first quarter from April to June, we plan to launch 9 models and there after we will launch 4 to 5 products every quarter. Practically every month we will launch a new product from the U truck range. Initially we will target the tractor and tipper segment, and within each product category the company will offer variants. In tippers alone there will be close to 20 different models, Mr. Saharia adds.
Design and Development of U Truck
Mr. R. R. G. Menon, Executive Director - Product Development, Ashok Leyland, observes: “When designing and developing the U Truck, we have closely looked at the parameters which drive business for our customer which is better comfort for the driver, better fuel efficiency, more payload, high vehicle uptime, faster turn-around time, durability and a fully built solution which will help him put the vehicle on road from day 1. This is the base from which the engineering team started”.
Cabs
The new U Truck series will have all combinations starting from 4X2, 6X2, 6X4, 8X2, 8X4 in the haulage, tipper and tractor segments. In terms of features, the new truck range will have factory-built cabs as standard in all trucks. It is the G90 cab or the Newgen cab, as it is known. The cabs will be both high roof and day cabs with factory-fitted AC as optional. The cab will be a suspended and tiltable one having cleared all crash tests. The company is also working on a completely new cab, code named the Nextgen, which will be introduced from 2012-13 onwards.
New series engines
Ashok Leyland has developed a completely new series of engines to power the U Truck. The new Neptune series of engines will set benchmarks offering superior levels of performance, power and fuel efficiency. In the Neptune series, there are 11 different power ratings starting from 160 to 360 hp, which will be Euro 3, Euro 4-compliant and the Neptune series can be upgraded to Euro 5. The Neptune engines are both SCR and EGR ready. The company has worked with AVL of Austria in developing the new series of engines.
Apart from the Neptune series of engines, the existing successful H series engines will also be offered in the U Truck. Currently the engine range Ashok Leyland offers is in the range of 160 to 360 hp. For requirement beyond 360 hp, particularly in heavy duty Tractor Trailer applications, the company is open to sourcing engines from manufacturers like Cummins or CAT.
Transmissions
The transmissions will be manufactured by Ashok Leyland with technology from ZF. The U Truck range will offer 6, 8, 9 and 16 speed gear boxes based on the models and specifications. Ashok Leyland currently manufactures the 6, 8 and 9 speed gear boxes and 16 speed will be sourced from ZF directly. The company is also working on automated manual transmissions and fully automatic transmission for deep mining applications.
Axles
Rear axles will be from both Meritor and Dana sourced from Automotive Axles and Axles India. The company will offer seven different rear axle ratios based on the application and customer requirement. Front axles will be manufactured by Ashok Leyland in-house. The U truck will be fitted with bigger and wider brakes with disc brakes as an option. The new front axle have been designed accordingly. All this helps is getting faster turnaround time.
Suspension
The suspension has been designed to be longer than the current offering and this would result in better ride comfort. The company offers both standard and heavy duty suspension based on applications. Ashok Leyland is also planning to offer anti-roll bar and air suspension system based on customer requirement.
Front instrument cluster
The electronic architecture in the U Truck needs specific mention. The Automotive Infotronics Division has developed a completely new instrument panel through its joint venture with Continental. The new instrument panel can perform functions like remote diagnosis, prognosis, gear shift indicator, fuel, maps, cameras and many others.
The U Truck will offer 5 to 7 per cent better fuel efficiency than the present range of vehicles. It depends on the way you select the driveline for the application. The truck has been tested for over 300,000 kms on road.
Ashok Leyland is working on every aspect which will result in improved performance of the product. The company is also designing the applications like tippers, trailer, bulkers as the performance of the vehicle largely depends on the design of these applications. Even the hydraulics used on the tipper will be Ashok Leyland branded and will be integrated with the vehicle and validated by the company. “Tippers, trailers and other bodies will be loaded to the vehicle at the production point, and the vehicle will roll out as a fully built unit. We will take complete responsibility for the product”, adds Mr. Saharia.
The new products will have a modular nature that will help Ashok Leyland to develop variants to address the needs of different markets, different application, and road conditions.
Sales and service
Mr. Seshasayee says: “U-Truck is part of the organizational transformational process. We have covered some ground, in the ability of functions to be proximate without intermediation, in capturing customer voice, CRM and in dealer management. U-Truck will bring in further changes in the organization. Units have to move from stock-and-sell to make-to-order. It will call for greater agility to fulfill diverse orders. It will change the way we deliver products and services to the customer”.
Ashok Leyland is addressing this requirement by completely revamping the sales and service infrastructure and manpower. There is a completely transformation in the service infrastructure.
Mr. Saharia says: “One of the major challenges for the company would be in the area of sales and service of the new truck range. Its going to be very different from selling just a standard chassis. – We need to sit down with the customer, find his application, understand his requirement and build a truck which best suits his needs. We need to factor-in performance characteristics like power, gradeability, fuel efficiency before we suggest the right truck to our customer. We want to offer a completely different service experience to the customer. We have geared up in terms of delivering quality service and the promise of assured and quick response times. For this we have started an initiative called ‘Leyland Direct’, which is already being piloted on certain routes.
Leyland Direct is an initiative to create a single point of contact for all customer needs, addressing their sales, service and parts requirements. Currently it has started off as a distress response initiative. “The commitment is if, on the Golden Quadrilateral, a customer needs help at any place or time, he can call our helpline, and we will reach there in 4 hours and get the vehicle back on road in 48 hours. And if we fail to set it right in 48 hours, then we pay compensation accordingly”, said Mr. Saharia.
For the purpose, Ashok Leyland has created a touch point every 75 to 100 km within the Golden Quadrilateral. The idea is to be able to map all the routes where the customers operate and extend the service offering.
Even for tipper operators who are operating in remote locations like mines, the company is working on providing service at the customer site. It has recently started a containerised workshop, a mobile service offering, which can be stationed in location where there is a high density of customer vehicles.
Added to this, the trucks can be fitted with the ALERT module which can enable two way voice communication. Through this module, the driver can instantly connect to the Ashok Leyland service call centre. The call centre is equipped with manpower to handle upto six different languages, and they don’t just attend to the call but are also equipped to understand the problem and immediately inform the nearby service facility which will reach the customer at the fastest possible time.
The company has looked at high reliability as an important factor in all aggregates. This will ensure maximum vehicle uptime. It has also looked at increasing the life of consumables and has designed it in such a way that the service and replacement interval for all aggregates and consumables will be at 40,000 km. This will ensure the vehicle can have a longer usage period without having to frequently visit the service station resulting in lesser maintenance time for the major aggregates, optimising lifecycle maintenance cost and ensuring longer warranty periods.
Global markets
According to Mr. Seshasayee, the U Truck reflects the company’s global ambitions and will help it spearhead its entry into the second hemisphere market, with competitive advantages in costs.
The company has been expanding its export market adding 2 to 3 new markets every year. Last year it added Honduras in Latin America and this year it will add a couple of more markets in the same region. We are also looking at the South East Asian region, says Mr. Seshasayee. The company is also looking at the possibility of exporting these trucks as SKDs and assembling it at UAE, where it has recently established a Bus plant.
Mr. R. Seshasayee, Managing Director, Ashok Leyland, says: “U-Truck anticipates and will continue to answer the changing needs of the market. It is not a niche product but a vehicle for mass migration of customers to a superior experience”.The U-Truck will be manufactured at the new state-of-the-art facility at Pantnagar which has a capacity to manufacture 50, 000 trucks per annum. Initial units will be rolled out of the Hosur II facility, adds Mr. Seshasayee.
Mr. Rajive Saharia, Executive Director - Sales & Marketing, Ashok Leyland, said: “The U Truck series will be unveiled at the Auto Expo and will be progressively launched, starting from April 2010. We have lined up 25 different models in the U Truck range, and all these models will be launched within 18 months starting from April 2010”.The U Truck range will comprise the complete range of trucks from 16 to 49 tonne which includes haulage trucks, tippers and tractors. The new range will eventually replace the existing range of trucks offered by Ashok Leyland.
The U Truck project was a complete shift in the way we started looking at the market and customers, says Mr. B.Venkat Subramaniam, Special Director - Future Vehicles Program, Ashok Leyland Ltd. “Currently we have a range of trucks which are typically built on to a standard chassis and then developed for a specific solution. Even though we have a wide range of products, it is still not very comprehensive to address the needs of our customers. The U-Truck is a complete shift in the way we started addressing the customer needs. We want to offer our customers a product which is completely customised to the application for which the truck will be used. Also the U Truck range has been fuelled by our own ambitions to grow, to enter new markets and cater to customers whom we are not catering to right now. That’s why we have developed a new platform of trucks that is entirely modular to build and therefore much easier to customise and deliver retaining the DNA of Ashok Leyland trucks which is rugged, reliable and fuel efficient. The U-Truck range will be contemporary, competitive and future ready products and will transform the customer needs”.
Positioning of the U-Truck
The name U-Truck comes from the company’s tagline “Engineering your tomorrows”. It’s the ‘your’ in the middle which stands for ‘U’ and this in turn signifies the customer.
Mr. Saharia says: “The mission behind the development of the U Truck was to offer customers an opportunity to mass-migrate into a future truck, which is ready to deliver a far superior experience. It is leading the customer’s needs, and on that delivering a better experience. While doing this we are not trying to create a niche segment or a high-end product. This is a product which will be offered to the entire range of customers. It will address our entire range from 16 to 49 tonnes. The U truck range will be affordable and ensure higher return on investment for our customers”.
Ashok Leyland is planning to launch 25 new models under the U Truck range in the first 18 months starting from April next. The reason for choosing this date is purely to match the emission norms. The U Truck series will cover the entire range from tractor trailers, tippers and haulage vehicles.
“In the first quarter from April to June, we plan to launch 9 models and there after we will launch 4 to 5 products every quarter. Practically every month we will launch a new product from the U truck range. Initially we will target the tractor and tipper segment, and within each product category the company will offer variants. In tippers alone there will be close to 20 different models, Mr. Saharia adds.
Design and Development of U TruckMr. R. R. G. Menon, Executive Director - Product Development, Ashok Leyland, observes: “When designing and developing the U Truck, we have closely looked at the parameters which drive business for our customer which is better comfort for the driver, better fuel efficiency, more payload, high vehicle uptime, faster turn-around time, durability and a fully built solution which will help him put the vehicle on road from day 1. This is the base from which the engineering team started”.
Cabs
The new U Truck series will have all combinations starting from 4X2, 6X2, 6X4, 8X2, 8X4 in the haulage, tipper and tractor segments. In terms of features, the new truck range will have factory-built cabs as standard in all trucks. It is the G90 cab or the Newgen cab, as it is known. The cabs will be both high roof and day cabs with factory-fitted AC as optional. The cab will be a suspended and tiltable one having cleared all crash tests. The company is also working on a completely new cab, code named the Nextgen, which will be introduced from 2012-13 onwards.
New series engines
Ashok Leyland has developed a completely new series of engines to power the U Truck. The new Neptune series of engines will set benchmarks offering superior levels of performance, power and fuel efficiency. In the Neptune series, there are 11 different power ratings starting from 160 to 360 hp, which will be Euro 3, Euro 4-compliant and the Neptune series can be upgraded to Euro 5. The Neptune engines are both SCR and EGR ready. The company has worked with AVL of Austria in developing the new series of engines.
Apart from the Neptune series of engines, the existing successful H series engines will also be offered in the U Truck. Currently the engine range Ashok Leyland offers is in the range of 160 to 360 hp. For requirement beyond 360 hp, particularly in heavy duty Tractor Trailer applications, the company is open to sourcing engines from manufacturers like Cummins or CAT.
Transmissions
The transmissions will be manufactured by Ashok Leyland with technology from ZF. The U Truck range will offer 6, 8, 9 and 16 speed gear boxes based on the models and specifications. Ashok Leyland currently manufactures the 6, 8 and 9 speed gear boxes and 16 speed will be sourced from ZF directly. The company is also working on automated manual transmissions and fully automatic transmission for deep mining applications.
Axles
Rear axles will be from both Meritor and Dana sourced from Automotive Axles and Axles India. The company will offer seven different rear axle ratios based on the application and customer requirement. Front axles will be manufactured by Ashok Leyland in-house. The U truck will be fitted with bigger and wider brakes with disc brakes as an option. The new front axle have been designed accordingly. All this helps is getting faster turnaround time.
Suspension
The suspension has been designed to be longer than the current offering and this would result in better ride comfort. The company offers both standard and heavy duty suspension based on applications. Ashok Leyland is also planning to offer anti-roll bar and air suspension system based on customer requirement.
Front instrument cluster
The electronic architecture in the U Truck needs specific mention. The Automotive Infotronics Division has developed a completely new instrument panel through its joint venture with Continental. The new instrument panel can perform functions like remote diagnosis, prognosis, gear shift indicator, fuel, maps, cameras and many others.
The U Truck will offer 5 to 7 per cent better fuel efficiency than the present range of vehicles. It depends on the way you select the driveline for the application. The truck has been tested for over 300,000 kms on road.
Ashok Leyland is working on every aspect which will result in improved performance of the product. The company is also designing the applications like tippers, trailer, bulkers as the performance of the vehicle largely depends on the design of these applications. Even the hydraulics used on the tipper will be Ashok Leyland branded and will be integrated with the vehicle and validated by the company. “Tippers, trailers and other bodies will be loaded to the vehicle at the production point, and the vehicle will roll out as a fully built unit. We will take complete responsibility for the product”, adds Mr. Saharia.The new products will have a modular nature that will help Ashok Leyland to develop variants to address the needs of different markets, different application, and road conditions.
Sales and service
Mr. Seshasayee says: “U-Truck is part of the organizational transformational process. We have covered some ground, in the ability of functions to be proximate without intermediation, in capturing customer voice, CRM and in dealer management. U-Truck will bring in further changes in the organization. Units have to move from stock-and-sell to make-to-order. It will call for greater agility to fulfill diverse orders. It will change the way we deliver products and services to the customer”.
Ashok Leyland is addressing this requirement by completely revamping the sales and service infrastructure and manpower. There is a completely transformation in the service infrastructure.
Mr. Saharia says: “One of the major challenges for the company would be in the area of sales and service of the new truck range. Its going to be very different from selling just a standard chassis. – We need to sit down with the customer, find his application, understand his requirement and build a truck which best suits his needs. We need to factor-in performance characteristics like power, gradeability, fuel efficiency before we suggest the right truck to our customer. We want to offer a completely different service experience to the customer. We have geared up in terms of delivering quality service and the promise of assured and quick response times. For this we have started an initiative called ‘Leyland Direct’, which is already being piloted on certain routes.
Leyland Direct is an initiative to create a single point of contact for all customer needs, addressing their sales, service and parts requirements. Currently it has started off as a distress response initiative. “The commitment is if, on the Golden Quadrilateral, a customer needs help at any place or time, he can call our helpline, and we will reach there in 4 hours and get the vehicle back on road in 48 hours. And if we fail to set it right in 48 hours, then we pay compensation accordingly”, said Mr. Saharia.
For the purpose, Ashok Leyland has created a touch point every 75 to 100 km within the Golden Quadrilateral. The idea is to be able to map all the routes where the customers operate and extend the service offering.
Even for tipper operators who are operating in remote locations like mines, the company is working on providing service at the customer site. It has recently started a containerised workshop, a mobile service offering, which can be stationed in location where there is a high density of customer vehicles.
Added to this, the trucks can be fitted with the ALERT module which can enable two way voice communication. Through this module, the driver can instantly connect to the Ashok Leyland service call centre. The call centre is equipped with manpower to handle upto six different languages, and they don’t just attend to the call but are also equipped to understand the problem and immediately inform the nearby service facility which will reach the customer at the fastest possible time.
The company has looked at high reliability as an important factor in all aggregates. This will ensure maximum vehicle uptime. It has also looked at increasing the life of consumables and has designed it in such a way that the service and replacement interval for all aggregates and consumables will be at 40,000 km. This will ensure the vehicle can have a longer usage period without having to frequently visit the service station resulting in lesser maintenance time for the major aggregates, optimising lifecycle maintenance cost and ensuring longer warranty periods.
Global markets
According to Mr. Seshasayee, the U Truck reflects the company’s global ambitions and will help it spearhead its entry into the second hemisphere market, with competitive advantages in costs.
The company has been expanding its export market adding 2 to 3 new markets every year. Last year it added Honduras in Latin America and this year it will add a couple of more markets in the same region. We are also looking at the South East Asian region, says Mr. Seshasayee. The company is also looking at the possibility of exporting these trucks as SKDs and assembling it at UAE, where it has recently established a Bus plant.
The U-Truck marks the beginning of a new chapter in the history of Ashok Leyland. The 60-year-old company has transformed itself to match up to the requirements of the market and its customers. The U-Truck will lead the Ashok Leyland’s growth in the future.
Said Mr. Kapur: “I am delighted to introduce the MaxxForce brand of engines, which power the world’s best trucks, to the Indian market. With its outstanding performance and low cost of ownership, I am sure that the MaxxForce 7.2 diesel engine will enjoy the same equity in India, as it does across the globe. We are also pleased to extend our association with Mahindra which is one of India’s leading auto brands.”
“MNAL would be a major player and not a marginal player in the commercial vehicle segment. We will look at double digit market share in 2 to 3 years from launch of our product. We think we have a very strong value proposition in terms of pricing, technology, comfort, convenience, load carrying capacity and the way we will market and service the product”, says Dr. Goenka. 
The engine features both a mechanical injection system with a Bosch Rotary pump, as well as a high-pressure 1800 bar common-rail fuel injection system. This ensures outstanding fuel economy, performance and durability. The MaxxForce 7.2 diesel engine to be produced in India also fully conforms to BS III and BS IV emissions standards. It is positioned to outperform competition in three distinct areas of performance, reliability and fuel economy.
Allison Transmission, a leading manufacturer of automatic transmissions, has announced delivery of its 1000th bus transmission in India. The company has been supplying automatic transmissions to all major Indian bus manufacturers, including Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and JCBL. Having established its presence in the bus segment, the company is now looking to expand its presence in the truck segment, particularly in mining and construction applications.
DTC has placed a further order for 2,500 low-floor city buses with Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland, and all these vehicles will be fitted with Allison automatic transmissions.
Mr. Firodia says: “Today, the cost effectiveness and reliability of our product has become well accepted as we now have a large number of satisfied customers across all product segments”.
Currently in the tipper segment MAN Force offers a 16 tonne tipper, 25 tonne 6X4 tipper and 31 tonne 8X4 tippers. The company has already sold over 2,000 tippers in India. Jaihind, one of the group companies of Force Motors, has set up a tipper manufacturing unit in Pithampur close to the MAN Force facility, to supply tipper bodies for MAN trucks. This has already started operations and serial production will start in 2010, says Mr. Firodia. In 2010 MAN Force is expecting sales to reach a level of 500 trucks per month. For 2009-10 the target is to sell 3,000 trucks.
Asia MotorWorks Ltd. (AMW), is back in full force and is gearing up to take advantage of the opportunity unfolding in the truck industry from 2010 and beyond. The company is planning to stay focussed on heavy trucks and tippers and consolidate its position in the 16 to 49 tonne segment.
AMW’s 3123 truck, fitted with a 232BHP diesel engine, comes with a 6 speed gear shift with closely packed gear ratios, leading to longer life of transmission and reduced maintenance costs. The reinforced sturdy chassis construction is an ideal solution for applications such as concrete pumps and transit mixers. A trend-setting “ready-to-use” air-conditioned cabin – a standard fitment in all AMW trucks – has proved to enhance driver productivity, and is available in the 3123.
AMW offers trucks from 16 to 49 tonne range across haulage, tipper and tractor-trailer segments. The company is also looking at entering the 4X2 truck segment, which is a mass market product. Currently the company is averaging volumes of 500 to 600 units per month. For the current year, the target is to sell 6000 units, said Mr. Ramasubramanian.
Talking about the market opportunity from 2010 and beyond, Mr. Ramasubramanian observed that the market may not be euphoric but will start witnessing steady growth. The total market size for heavy trucks in India will hover around the 200,000 to 250,000 levels hence manufacturers will need to look at exports to emerging markets to utilise their capacities, Mr. Ramasubramanian added.
At the top-end is Prima, a 31-tonner tipper truck with an 8X4 configuration. Currently it comes with an 380 hp engine and very soon, the company is planning to launch another model in the Prima range with 420 hp engine. Due for introduction is 280 hp, a 31-tonner in the Prima range, which is aimed at the conventional road construction projects. This will be a more productive vehicle for the customers as they can do work faster with lesser number of vehicles.
This clearly demonstrates the company’s intent to offer fully-built solutions to its customers. From a revenue point of view it contributes much higher than the average truck sold. Currently in the CONSTRUCK brand the company is selling close to 50 per cent of the units as fully-built, and in the next few years this will go up to 90 per cent of the vehicles sold. Even within the CONSTRUCK range, 90 per cent of the multiaxle tipper trucks are already sold as fully built units. It’s only the 4X2 tippers which are being sold as runaway chassis, and this is also slowly moving towards being sold as fully built units.
