As India’s automobile sector meltdown continued to weigh on the beleaguered industry’s fortunes, the heaviest fall was recorded by the commercial vehicles and within commercial vehicles by heavy trucks and buses, which are the lifeline of the country’s road transport sector.
Production of commercial vehicles saw a fall of 25.8 per cent in the ten-month period of April 2019-January 2020 — from 9.15 lakh during the same period last year to 6.78 lakh this year.
However, the slide was more pronounced for medium and heavy vehicles segment where production fell by 42.26 per cent to 2.11 lakh.
“Cargo offerings are at low by more than 30 per cent and there is over-supply of goods carriers,” said S.P Singh, Senior Fellow and Coordinator of Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Traning.
Agreed Mukul Verma, an independent automobile sector analyst “with a slowdown in the entire economy demand for transportation has obviously come down and this has hit truck and bus purchases. Buying has also taken a downturn as truckers are waiting for BSVI compliant trucks to come into the market.”
Exports too did poorly with commercial vehicle sales abroad coming down by 37.51 per cent during the April-January period and heavy and medium vehicle exports falling by a whopping 50 per cent.
Ashok Leyland, for instance, saw production fall by 36.22 per cent, while Tata Motors’ commercial vehicles saw a fall of 27 per cent. Similarly, Mahindra & Mahindra commercial vehicle output also fell 16.49 per cent.
More BS VI models in the pipeline
The Cruzio launch, which was made during the Auto Expo, comes as part of a larger launch of a wide range of BS-VI models in both the truck and bus segments by the company