Coming back to your business, when will the
Gurkha be launched across the country?
As
we announced in July this year, we will launch the Gurkha next month in
September 2014. Therefore we thought of the RFC in August. If we win the RFC
there will be nothing like it. We have in the meantime learned a lot in terms
of motorsports, which is completely a different ball game. The way you think of
engineering on a regular basis you cannot think like that here. It’s completely
different.
The
engineering team that worked on this, for them it was exciting because they
were doing something which is very different. There was no bar on how wide you
can go. A lot of team work was displayed in putting these vehicles together in
two and a half months. Every department, right from purchasing to development
to testing to prototyping, I think they loved it.
For the other employees who were not a part
of it, it would be a proud moment for them also?
Absolutely, I am waiting to get these vehicles
back into the factory and show them what the guys have done and made.
Are you going to remain a niche player in
the passenger vehicle segment in India?
I
have learnt a lot in the last two years. Getting into the personal vehicle
segment is not easy and is very challenging. Indians want a change every six
months. One needs to have big pockets and the ability to sustain losses. The
good thing is though we have sold close to about 3000 SUVs we have learned a
lot. . We got to learn about new features, new technologies, new safety
requirements – ABS, air suspension, electronics, Infotainment all of these are
features which are today not very predominant in CVs. Getting in to a segment
like this helps you a lot. But whether I do this big scale, we will have to
look at it carefully.
But
our existing business, be it the Traveller or the Trax, it’s doing extremely well. In the
Traveler segment we are now clearly India’s largest van maker. The Traveler is
doing extremely well. We have extended our Traveler platform and those segments
are going phenomenally for us. Our Traxs segment continues to do well. Gurkha
is again a niche product and the beauty of a vehicle like a Gurkha is that it’s
an ageless product. People are going to respect it for its off roading
capability so vehicles like this will survive a long time. You look at the Land
Rover Defender. It hasn’t changed. Look at the G class Gelandewagen, the body
remains the same for the last 40 years.
For
the Gurkha, there is no offering similar to this. This is huge potential in
exports. For the last two months I have been exporting vehicles. Several
countries in Africa have taken the Gurkha as an army vehicle. Several African
game parks have taken our vehicle as an excursion vehicle.