VE Commercial Vehicles to invest Rs 1,000 cr by 2014-end

The company has already invested Rs 1,500 crore in the country since it began operations in 2008

VE Commercial Vehicles, a joint venture between Sweden's Volvo Group and homegrown Eicher Motors, today said it plans to invest Rs 1,000 crore by the end of next year in India.

 

The JV firm, which started commercial production from its new engine plant here today, has already invested Rs 1,500 crore in the country since it began operations in 2008.

 

"We plan to invest another Rs 1,000 crore in 2013 and 2014 on various things, including the upcoming bus manufacturing facility and expansion of existing truck manufacturing plant," VE Commercial Vehicles (VECV) CEO Vinod Aggarwal told reporters here.

 

With the proposed investment, the company's total investment in the country since 2008 would reach Rs 2,500 crore, he added.

 

VECV's new engine plant, which produces Euro VI compliant engines, has been set up with an initial investment of Rs 375 crore to produce 25,000 engines per annum in phase one.

 

"We plan to invest another Rs 125 crore by 2015 to take the production capacity to one lakh engines per annum," Eicher Motors MD and CEO Siddhartha Lal said.

 

VECV would be manufacturing Euro VI compliant base engines for meeting automotive requirements of medium duty engines of Volvo Group globally, he added.

 

The company will supply the base diesel engines to Volvo's plant at Venissieux, France, where these will be assembled for the Volvo Group Euro VI requirements.

 

Lal said the same engine platform would be adapted to Euro III and Euro IV technologies to meet the VECV requirements and other Volvo group requirements in Asia.

 

"These engines would be adapted to Euro III and Euro IV specifications and will be used by our trucks in India," he added.

 

VECV would use the new engines in its existing range of trucks as well as the new range, which it plans to unveil by the end of this year.

 

The firm began operations in July 2008 and its business include the complete range of Eicher trucks and buses, VE Powertrain, Eicher's components and engineering design services as well as sales and distribution of Volvo trucks with In India.