Swedish truckmaker Scania to invest 30 Million USD at its Indian plant!

The Indian growth story is attracting more investment each passing day in the automotive sector and the latest big ticket investment is from Swedish truckmaker Scania, who will now join compatriot Volvo by setting up a plant at Bangalore, India. Scania has had an Indian presence right from 2007, when it teamed up with Indian engineering behemoth Larsen and Toubro to build trucks for the mining sector. Through the latest investment though, Scania will go it alone in India and assemble its range of on-road trucks. Over the next five years, Scania hopes to employ 800 people for its new assembly unit.

A Scania R580 Tractor Trailer Truck

The partnership with Larsen and Toubro though, for the off road and mining truck segment stays as it is. Scania will invest a sum of 30 Million USD or 150 crores at its Bangalore unit to assemble truck and bus chassis in India along with doing up he interiors. The kits will arrive from Sweden through the completely knocked down(CKD) route. As a result, the prices of the Scania trucks will now rival offerings from Volvo, Bharat Benz and MAN. The assembly plant at Bangalore will become operational by 2013.S cania aims to produce and sell 2,000 trucks, 1,000 buses and 1,500 engines each year, within the next five years.

A Scania Touring Bus

Incidentally, Scania is owned by the German Volkswagen group. The Volkswagen group also owns another commercial vehicle maker in India, albeit through a joint venture. Volkswagen has joined hands with Abhay Firodia promoted Force Motors to make a range of MAN trucks in India. This alliance will soon branch out into buses as well. With Scania also planning to enter both the truck as well as bus segment, Scania and MAN-Force could become competitors in India, just like Skoda competes with parent brand Volkswagen in the passenger car space. Until now though, Scania wasn’t in direct competition with Man-Force as it was present only in the heavy duty mining truck segment.

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