Sept. 11 – Mercedes-Benz’s Indian arm, Daimler India Commercial Vehicles, is tapping into the high potential of the Indian market by launching a localized range of small trucks by 2012 from its Chennai plant.

Wilfried Aulbur, Mercedes-Benz India managing director and CEO, announced this after the launch of the Actros 4841K range of new trucks being manufactured at the company’s facility in Chakan, Pune. There is already an order placed for 100 of the trucks with future orders said to reach up to 250 trucks in the next three years.

Aulbur also asserted that the commercial vehicle market in India is growing at a good speed and they plan to sell around 240 Actros trucks this year, consistent with last year’s sales. The Actros fulfills a demand from the growing Indian mining and infrastructure operators because of India’s emerging power sector.

The Actros is the largest selling truck model worldwide and over 600,000 trucks have been sold since its inception in 1996. Aulbur was quoted by the Sindh Today as saying: “The new Mercedes-Benz Actros will be a valuable partner for the vibrant Indian mining and infrastructure operators and we have high expectations from this product in India”

Daimler India Commercial Vehicles plans to continue with its business plans in Chennai, despite its joint venture partner, Hero Motors, withdrawing from the project. “The Chennai unit would enter the mass market product range in the truck segment as per schedule. As of now, there are no plans to bring in existing international truck brands to Indian market. The products planned from Chennai would be highly Indianized, with heavy localization share,” Aulbur was quoted by the Business Standard as saying.