With the explosion in growth of passenger vehicles in India, there is a need for better technology solutions to transport cars from OEM plants to various dealers across India. The current solutions are simple trailers carrying 8-10 cars on a 22 mt length. Incidentally, in India double decked tractor trailer lengths are permitted upto 22 mt and rigid trailer lengths are permitted upto 12 mt. Hence these trailers can carry small cars upto 10 in numbers and others upto 6-8 in numbers depending upon the size of the car.
Just to give you an indication, here's the length of smallest cars in India:
| Specs | Hyundai Santro Xing GL | Maruti Suzuki Alto LX - BS III | Tata Indica V2 DLE-BS III | Chevrolet Spark 1.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall Length (mm) | 3565 | 3495 | 3675 | 3495 |
But with the advent of Tata Nano, the game is set to change again. The world's cheapest car will want a cheap and efficient transport solution and it will be a big number game. The Tata's would want to carry atleast 12-14 Nano's per trip to cut the costs. Hence a more complex Hydraulic system based solution will be required, which uses the space of the trailer efficiently and packs in more cars per trip.
The Kailash Rolfo JV will try and produce a solution using Italian technology but fit for Indian conditions. Customers will want extra cars without increasing the cost of the trailer. It will be a very difficult job for the engineers and designers of Kailash Rolfo to match customer expectations on both the fronts - 'cars per trip' and 'price'. They will have to find a solution mid-way.
No comments:
Post a Comment