Tata Divo to take on Volvo and Mercedes Benz buses

The Indian luxury bus market is currently dominated by Volvo with its B7R and B9R range of buses, followed by Mercedes Benz. And now, the local player, Tata Motors, aims to grab a major chunk of this segment with their soon to be launched bus, the Divo - a luxury AC coach meant for intercity long-distance operations. The launch will happen in the first quarter of the next financial year. It is also learnt that currently five Divos are under trail run on the Indian roads.

Tata had earlier experimented with the Hispano model (read HERE) but it seems the sales werent good enough. "This will be an international product at an Indian price. Hence, we will be 10 per cent less expensive than our competitors," said Ashish Tandon, head (marketing, buses).

Divo, whose styling comes from Spanish bodybuilding company Hispano Corracera, is now a fully-owned subsidiary of Tata Motors, is BS-III compliant and powered with a 285-horse power Cummins engine.

The standard variant seats 46 and can be customised according to passenger and operator requirements. He said the company was expecting to sell 300 units.

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TATA Hispano : Can it make a dent?

Remember the new rear engined luxury bus from TATA in collaboration with Hispano. The body is made at ACGL's factory in Goa. Though its priced quite low as compared to the likes of the Volvo buses, we havent really seen many of these on the road.
Lately, things are moving on though with SRS travels among others having taken these buses.
Here are a few images of how SRS's Hispano bus looks like.

TATA Hispano luxury buses : APSRTC starts using them

APSRTC has started using the new TATA Hispano inter-city luxury buses. The main reason for this is the lower cost of the bus, which is around Rs 50, a good Rs 25 lakh less than the likes of the Volvo B7R.

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Pic : www.thehindu.com