After almost three years of their joint venture announcement for light commercial vehicles (LCVs), Ashok Leyland and Nissan on Tuesday jointly announced their first product roll out under Ashok Leyland platform. The 1.25 tonne capacity LCV, named Dost, will be manufactured under one of the joint venture called Ashok Leyland Nissan Vehicles and will be manufactured at ALL?s existing facility at Hosur in Tamil Nadu.
To be commercially available in the market during second quarter of 2011-12 financial year (July-September 2011), both ALL and Nissan is pitching Dost against the biggies such as Tata and Mahindra (products such as Ace and Maxximo, Genio and Bolero, respectively). With brand equity and unique features, ?Dost? is expected to be priced competitively to take on the competitors in a big way, said V Sumantran, executive vice chairman, Hinduja Automotive Limited and chairman of Nissan Ashok Leyland Powertrain Limited, an ther JV between both the companies.
?We believe the product going to be a segment creator as well trend setter in the below 3 tonne category and will woo the existing customers as well as new customers of three wheeler goods carriers. It is targeted at the individual businessmen/fresh entrepreneurs who seek to own and enjoy the benefits of owing such vehicle,? Sumantran maintained.
He added, ?We will be making ?Dost? out of our Hosur facility for the next two to three years with an initial capacity of 75,000 units per annum, which can be scaled up. As part of the JV, we have lined up two more products to be launched under ALL brand, including a passenger version in the next two years.?
Sumantran said,?We will announce the price at the time of commercial launch (July-September) and `Dost’ will come out in three variants complying BS III and IV regulations. We will set up an exclusive LCV dealership network across the country to give a new identity to the LCV JV and we have already roped in 25 dealers (61 outlets) and will set up more such dealerships going forward. ?Market sources, here, said that ?Dost? may be priced between R5.2 lakh to R5.7 lakh to take on competition in a big way.
According to Sumantran, of the 300.,000 LCV industry in India, this segment (below 3.5 tonne) is the fastest growing one with an annual growth of 25% and holds close to 70% of the total industry size.
Andy Palmer, chairman of the JV and Senior VP of Nissan Motor Company said, “Blended with the best of Japanese engineering, designing and quality coupled with cost effective production of ALL, ?Dost? will become an attractive value proposition to the individual entrepreneurs, small and medium businesses and we hope to do better in this segment.”
According to him, the product initially will be marketed in India and will be exported to countries such as ME, South Africa and other neighbouring countries after a year or so. ?We have not yet set the sales target and we will announce the same at the time of commercial launch,? Palmer said. ?The next product of the JV will be that of Nissan?s brand and that will be manufactured at our Oragadam plant near Chennai and will be launched in 2012. The third product will be again from ALL and will be launched in 2013,? he said.