Daimler may export Made-in-India Mercedes cars

BY S VENKAT NARAYAN

Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI:

Global automotive giant Daimler is considering plans to export Made-in-India Mercedes cars, its global CEO Ola Kallenius has said. A final go-ahead depends on the financial viability, he added.

Daimler has made India an exclusive sourcing global base for certain key components, as well as new-age software. This is being seen here as a major validation of India’s manufacturing quality.

“I am kind of an India fan. They do a lot of things. In the meantime, some components have actually moved to India permanently for worldwide responsibility. So, this will remain an important part of our engineering effort and where it takes us, I don’t know,” the Daimler CEO said after unveiling the new S-Class limousine in Germany.

He said software is “certainly one of the main areas” where Daimler can grow in India. “And it’s not just vehicle engineering, but also on the IT side. Since many years, it is a ‘solid pillar’ in our house.”

Daimler has two factories in India — while Pune in Maharashtra state houses the plant for Mercedes-Benz cars, the Bharat Benz range of trucks are made in Chennai. The company also has a global R&D and engineering centre in Bangalore.

On export of Mercedes-Benz cars from India, Kallenius said it would be “a purely economic” decision. “If it will make economic sense, we would do so. But that has not been the case up until this point. I don’t know when it would be. If we have to make any decision in that direction, it would come down to the financials,” The Times of India quoted him as saying.

Around two years ago, the company had exported the India-made GLC SUV to the US. It had said then the India plant is a “back-up solution” in case of high global demand.

Asked about low sales of luxury car industry in India, Kallenius said numbers do not do justice to size of the country and strength of the economy and India’s population. “We have a good position in the market, but it feels… that you are shaking a ketchup bottle but the ketchup has not come out yet.”

Last year, Indians bought three million passenger cars, manufactured by over a dozen Indian and foreign companies.