With Ashok Leyland achieving an important milestone of becoming the first Indian OEM to meet the BS-VI emission norms across their full range of heavy-duty trucks, the company has now embarked on an ambitious programme of providing training to drivers and after-sales technicians while also giving a thought to how they can add power to their marketing drive in India and other countries, reports N. Balasubramanian.
Ashok Leyland (AL) has become the first Indian OEM to meet the BS-VI emission norms across their full range of heavy-duty trucks – GVW of 16.2T and above. On August 29, 2019, Dr. N Saravanan, Chief Technology Officer, Ashok Leyland, received the certificates, confirming compliance to BS-VI emission standards from the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), an autonomous automotive research and development organisation which offers comprehensive certification and homologation services for all kinds of vehicles. Commenting on this milestone, Dheeraj Hinduja, Chairman, Ashok Leyland, said: “Ashok Leyland has always been a pioneer in the introduction of new technology in the commercial vehicle industry and this achievement of meeting the BS-VI emission standard across our heavy vehicle range further reinforces our position as technology leaders.”
“Despite the short transition timeframe from BS IV to BS VI, we have done extensive testing and with a further seven months to go, we are confident that our indigenous development will provide a superior and competitive solution addressing the needs of our customers. We are deeply committed to indigenous research and development addressing market needs with a relevant and customised approach. Compliance in the LCV and ICV range will be completed shortly and we will offer a comprehensive range from 70 HP to 360 HP in BS VI application,” he added.
Sharing his comments on this achievement, Dr. N Saravanan said: “We were the first Indian OEM to showcase a Euro-VI truck during the Auto Expo 2016, Delhi, and we are the first to be ready with BS-VI vehicles across our heavy duty truck range, well ahead of the deadline. Technology and its intelligent use has been our forte. Whether it was the use of mechanical pump for BS-III or iEGR technology for BS-IV, we have strived to simplify the technology for our customers to deliver value throughout the product lifecycle. With our BS-VI range, we will continue to deliver on this promise of reliability and ease of operations. Additionally, we have developed an entire new modular vehicle platform for this range and are confident of meeting the increasingly dynamic customer requirements, with multiple options of loading spans, cabins, suspensions and drivetrains. These combinations would be offered to the customers through a custom-built product configurator.”
The Migration Journey
Back in 2017, AL’s solution for BS-IV had gained special attention due to the fact that it had chosen to go with a unique indigenously developed iEGR (intelligent EGR) system as compared to the SCR solution opted by almost all other major CV makers in the country. Like on numerous occasions in the past, the company proved successful with its Indian innovation, the iEGR solution, creating an exciting new solution in the process which it claimed would be ‘hugely cost-effective, easy to operate and hassle-free to maintain’. So, what would AL’s answer for BS-VI be and how much of an effort has gone into getting its entire portfolio BS-VI-compliant? “We have invested close to Rs 700 crores in BS-VI related projects over the last three to four years. We have had a lot of learning from the iEGR solution we had used on our BS-IV platform,” Dr. Saravanan said.
“We have carried over the same to our BS-VI platform in combination with an SCR system and a diesel particulate filter (DPF). In BS-IV, we had certain applications such as our 12-metre bus running on SCR, so the technology is not new to us. AL has spent a lot of time and effort on improving the base engine for BS-VI to ensure that fuel efficiency does not drop compared to BS-IV. It has done extensive on-road testing of its BS-VI trucks in real-time conditions and results have been quite encouraging. We have focused a lot on integrating the different systems for BS-VI with the right architecture, quality and reliability. We have tested 35 BS-VI trucks for over 2 million km and will continue the testing up to 4-5 million km to ensure we are fully ready for the market launch. The engine performance has been very good; we have not had any major failures and have matched our fuel efficiency targets,” he added.
After-Sales Network
While getting the products ready for BS-VI is one thing, gearing up the after-sales network – the dealers, mechanics, technicians – and the drivers might be an equally, if not more, important and challenging task. Sharing an update on that front, the AL CTO said: “While we have BS-VI products ready, we are also looking at getting the after-sales service aspect covered. We have an entire team taking care of the requirements in terms of infrastructure and skilling across our dealership touch-points and workshops. We had transferred a large team of service engineers to engineering during the last year; they have been part of the on-road testing as well and will go back to the field and become the evangelists for skill-building and troubleshooting across our network.”
Continuing on training the driver fraternity, he added: “A significant amount of training is required for drivers to drive a BS-VI truck or bus. We have to cover the entire spectrum of drivers including the already existing ones, which is going to be a challenge not just for us but for the entire industry and every OEM, particularly during the first few months after April 2020.” Apart from training the relevant stakeholders, AL also plans to use the advantages BS-VI brings along in terms of stepped up adoption of telematic solutions. “We will try and leverage telematics to be able to provide much better uptime and maintenance for our customers. We can perform lot more prognostics and send alerts to our dealers and service engineers if we see any potential trouble coming up in the vehicles,” he shared.
Export Opportunities
One major opportunity BS-VI offers home-grown CV makers is exports to countries unexplored thus far due to higher emission standards. BS-VI would result in a more level playing field that would enable manufacturers like AL to look at shipping trucks to other parts of the world. Signing off with a word on exports, Dr. Saravanan said: “We already export Euro IV and Euro V products to many markets. The countries we traditionally export to are not in the BS-VI (Euro VI) regime yet. The ones that come close are Russia, Ukraine and few other neighbouring countries which are currently at Euro V. As and when our target markets shift to Euro VI, we will definitely look at exporting relevant products to them.”