BSVI trucks pricing to be 10-15 per cent more premium than BSIV version
The automobile industry is gearing up for the biggest transition from BSIV to BSVI emissions, which comes into effect in April next year. Eicher Trucks and Buses has become the first CV manufacturer to launch BSVI compliant trucks in the country called Pro 2000 in both light and medium segments. These trucks are offered in two variants, Eicher Pro 2049 and the Eicher Pro 2095XP. While the Pro 2049 comes with a 1.8-metre cabin and 2.7 tonne payload and dual mode M-booster tech, the XP with a payload configuration of 7.2 tonnes is offered with five cargo holding configurations - 14.1, 17.6, 19, 20 and 21 feet. The trucks features two new engine options to comply with the BS standards.
Eicher maintains that the cabin of these two trucks offers comfortable driving experience, reduced NVH levels and also better turning radius. It comes equipped with steering mounted controls, 7-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Bluetooth connectivity and FM, USB and card reader options. In addition to that, these trucks also feature telematics connectivity for fleet management that gives real time location information to the truck owners and also helps the drivers achieve improved fuel efficiency with the fuel coaching feature. The company mentions that these new trucks have been designed to deliver segment-specific customer needs that meet higher profitability, enhanced reliability, more features, safety, comfort and efficiency.
In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Vinod Aggarwal, MD and CEO of VECV mentioned, "BSVI is going to be costlier as compared to the current BSIV trucks. So that cost increase or the pricing can range anywhere between 10 per cent and 15 per cent. It can vary for different tonnage trucks. For example, principally for higher tonnage trucks, the price increase will be slightly lower percentage wise, but the lower tonnage trucks can have a higher price increase. As far as the BSIV price is concerned, we are going to give these trucks at a marginal increase, not much increase so even though these are absolutely modern trucks, the price increase will be marginal."
He also added, "BSVI trucks will start selling once we have the fuel available in the country. Right now, the fuel is not available. So the BSVI trucks that we are unveiling, I don't think we will be able to sell them immediately. We are already manufacturing euro-VI base engines in India for the last six years. We are exporting these engines to the Volvo group. So we have massive experience in manufacturing euro-VI engines and at the same time, we also have a lot of learning from the Volvo group. Based on all that learning and manufacturing experience, we have incorporated all that in our trucks that we have designed here for BSVI. Based on that we are in a much relatively advantageous position with respect to the competition on BSVI technology."
