More Mercs to take to AP roads this year

DaimlerChrysler expects car sales in the state to go up by 25 per cent this year. Last year the company had sold a total of 100 vehicles in the state.

Addressing the media here today, Hans Michael Huber, CEO and managing director of DaimlerChrysler India, said: "Forty-five per cent of our sales were E-class and C-class saloons and five per cent were of the top of the line S-class." Huber hoped that the sales for this financial year would go up to about 120 to 125 cars.

Huber also said that the company would restrict itself to just one dealer in the state at present. "We would like our dealers to have a personal relationship with the customers," he said and added that the current volumes did not lend itself to having another dealership in the state.

Huber was in the city to announce that a bio-diesel powered C-class Mercedes had reached Hyderabad as part of a 5,000 km nationwide run. The move to run a vehicle on bio-diesel is to reduce particulate emissions from fossil diesel. The bio-diesel fuel is being produced from the jatropha plant.

Addressing the media on the test results, Huber said, "The car has done well running on the bio-diesel. It has so far completed 3,000 kms and there were no complications." He also said that the emissions for this type of diesel have been lower when compared to the natural diesel.

"The particulate matter emission have come down by about one-third. And there are also no major changes that need to be done except that few rubber and plastic components have to be changed."

He said that the company, in association with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and the University of Hohenheim, Germany, had worked on this bio-diesel project.

Huber was hopeful that the jatropha plant which at present was growing in the wild could be cultivated so that the large scale production could be taken up.

"Efforts are on to see that the jatropha plants can be cultivated. At present, we are looking at plantations in Gujarat and Orissa," he said.

He also said that bio-diesel could contribute to about 10 per cent of the country's diesel needs. The plantations can give a yield of about 12 tonnes per hectare out of which 60 per cent could be converted to bio-diesel.

He was hopeful that the new diesel would be economically viable and the government would support the company in the project. He was, however, unable to give a time frame for the project or how much the bio-diesel would cost.

Responding to a question on the homologation tests of the Maybach, the costliest car on world roads, at the Automotive Research Authority of India (ARAI), Pune, he said, "The company has done well in all the earlier homologation tests, so this one would also pass the test."

He said that the results would be out by August this year.