This story first appeared in the July issue of DieselTalk – CLICK HERE to download the magazine FREE
A massive six-month analysis of Indian supplied Fuso trucks is taking place on New Zealand roads.
Fuso New Zealand has confirmed it is two months into the local evaluation of new trucks sourced from the Daimler India Commercial Vehicle (DICV) plant near Chennai, India, to join and complement its existing market offer.
Known internally as Project Kymera, the customer drive trials (CDT) involve more than 25 vehicles.
DICV manufactures left-hand drive and right-hand drive trucks from 10-tonnes to 40-tonnes under the Mercedes-Benz, Bharat-Benz and Fuso brands for more than 30 global markets.
DIESELtalk and a party of media and dealer representatives travelled to India last week as guests of Fuso NZ and DICV to view the plant and its products.
The visitors also got to drive three of the trucks on its test track.
The plant at Oragadam is a wholly owned subsidiary of Daimler Truck and Bus AG and was created from a greenfield site in 2009.
It produces vehicles to the same standard of quality and robustness as Daimler’s truck plant in Germany.
Fuso NZ managing director Kurtis Andrews says the distributor and dealer network is working with a range of customers to evaluate some DICV vehicles that will complement the existing Japanese product range of Canter, Fighter and HD trucks.
“Daimler insisted that we conduct the CDT programme for a minimum of six months to be able to give the factory feedback on the performance of the vehicles in New Zealand conditions, particularly as we have a lot of hilly roads, which other markets don’t have,” Andrews says.
He’s adamant the as yet-unbranded new truck line-up will not cannibalise sales of the existing Fuso range of Japanese-sourced product.
“Not everything on offer from DICV is suitable for New Zealand and we will have a separate brand name for these vehicles as we are only sourcing trucks that will be suitable to target new customers and new markets outside of our traditional buyers.”
There will be a thorough shake-down and evaluation of the CDT units for the rest of the year before the range is launched in the first quarter of 2018, Andrews says.
“The CDT evaluation will help us to cement a final product line-up because nothing is yet fully confirmed in terms of specification for the New Zealand bound vehicles.
“We are starting the process to clarify which of the units on the road here will be best suited to the complementary range for additional sales volume.”
The trucks in the CDT programme are 10-tonne and 12-tonne units that use technology and drive trains derived from the Fuso Canter and 16-tonne, 25-tonne, 31-tonne, and 40-tonne units that use technology and drivetrains derived from the Mercedes-Benz Axor.
Most units heading to New Zealand will be in cab/chassis configuration but DICV can also provide fully-built factory tippers and concrete-mixer trucks using Schwing-Stetter agitator units.
Some will be sold to customers and Fuso NZ will place others with clients on a long-term loan basis.
A dealer’s perspective
Prestige Commercial Vehicles dealer principal Russell Marr says Project Kymera is a great opportunity for the Fuso brand and its New Zealand dealership network as well.
“As a dealer, I can say that there is certainly a market for this new range of trucks, even though at this time we don’t yet know what the final range will look like,” Marr says.
“I was a little bit concerned that maybe this truck might not quite be up to our standards but I don’t have any fears about that any longer. I’m more than happy with the quality messages coming from the Daimler plant and the other two plants (Allison Transmission, Schwing Stetter) which we have visited here in India.”
The advantage of the Kymera product is the ability to target the trucks in certain sectors where the range will work, Marr says.
“And we don’t need to even try to be everything to everybody. I think we will be able to create some business for markets that we can’t currently operate in for reasons of price, or specification or offering.
“As a brand, you want to try to have as much stuff as possible that fits the market … with the Fuso product I think the Kymera range will plug the odd gap or two that we don’t have now and we’ll add new customers that we don’t have currently today and that will be really good for our business.
“Going forward we hope those new Kymera customers will prosper and get stronger and hopefully we will be able to continue a long and happy relationship with them.”
