Infra push revving up demand for heavy duty tippers

Ashok Leyland claims to be the only manufacturer of high HP tippers in India. These vehicles are used specifically in deep mining, boulder quarry, and road construction activities. They are in high demand across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, where a lot of infrastructure projects are underway

More Horsepower

- High HP tippers are used in deep mining, boulder quarry and road construction activities

- Generally, trucks available with 300HP

- Ashok Leyland rolled out 400HP tippers with customised options

- No manufacturer in India makes 800HP tippers

- Global majors Komatsu, Swedish company Volvo and American firm Caterpillar are making tippers upto 800HP

Hyderabad: With the Central government giving more thrust to infrastructure and mining sectors, the demand for high horsepower (HP) tippers has increased across India. The high HP tippers can go beyond the depth of 100 metres, which is not possible for a normal tipper vehicle. They are suitable for loading/ dumping activities of industries such as infrastructure, deep mining, stone crushing and construction.

"Among the total tipper trucks in the country, the share of high HP tippers has grown to 15 per cent this year from 10 per cent in the previous year. The share is likely to grow up to 25 per cent of the tipper trucks over the next couple of years," Sanjeev Kumar, head (medium & heavy commercial vehicle-M&HCV) Sales and Network, Ashok Leyland, told Bizz Buzz.

"While other truck manufacturers in the country are delivering tippers up to 300HP, Ashok Leyland's AVTR modular truck platform has come up with a range of around 400HP customised options based on load/ road requirements of the customers. These tippers come with four types of gear boxes that fit to the needs of high load users," he informed.

Ashok Leyland claims to be the only manufacturer of high HP tippers in India. These vehicles are used specifically in deep mining, boulder quarry, and road construction activities. They are in high demand across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, where a lot of infrastructure projects are underway.

Although other players in the country including BEML and BharatBenz supply high HP tippers, it depends on the orders. Samir Choudhry, Bharat Benz Dealer at Bengaluru-based Trident Automobiles Pvt Ltd, said: "We have delivered a 400 HP tipper to Sical Logistics, which is a part of Cafe Coffee Day Group. However, these vehicles are not regularly manufactured. It is possible to get them in specific order."

"Only few brands globally make the tippers with a range up to 700-800 HP. Japanese construction equipment maker Komatsu, Swedish company Volvo and American firm Caterpillar are some of the brands. India doesn't have makers of such tippers at all. While our tippers can carry around 40 tonnes of material, these global large size tippers can carry over 400 tonnes of load," he informed. Until recently, the requirement for high HP tippers was very low in the country. Also, these tippers cannot be used on all roads for surface transport. Only if the road is broad, they can move and that too for few specific applications. As infrastructure is a thrust area to the Central and State governments, the demand for these vehicles will continue to grow in the near future.

As per the monthly vehicle retail data of the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), the sales of heavy commercial vehicles (HCV) increased 75.54 per cent to 14,972 units in November 2021 against 8,578 units in the same month last year. The FADA does not have the retail data of tippers and high HP tippers in the country as it contributes a small portion of the HCV sales. According to Ashok Leyland, the company has sold close to 7,000 tippers and high HP tippers this year till November-end, including 900 from Telangana and AP. These vehicles have a share of 10 per cent in the overall commercial vehicle sales. The two Telugu States together contribute 15 per cent share and Telangana alone has 20 per cent share in the tipper sales.

Courtesy: Bizz Buzz.