The sales of commercial vehicles are improving as the economy opens up and schools, offices and campuses resume physical activity.The revival is across all categories from light and intermediate vehicles to heavy vehicles and buses.

Tata Motors executive director Girish Wagh said: “The domestic CV market is seeing a gradual recovery with cargo, agriculture, cement, steel, FMCG and e-commerce sectors showing fair growth.”

He was speaking at a virtual launch of a range of 21commercial vehicles from the Tata Motors garage on Thursday.

Wagh cited four factors post pandemic that are working in favour of the CV segment. “Infrastructure building is at a full pace, consumption is at an all time high fueled by e-commerce, there is an increase in personal mobility as schools, colleges, campuses reopen and domestic tours and travels are seeing unprecedented bookings,” said the director.

While the small commercial vehicle segment had been resilient through the pandemic, it was the medium and heavy commercial segment that had been hit hard by the lockdowns and reduced economic activities. With the economy gradually opening up, the latter is seeing an uptick, said Wagh.

When asked if high diesel prices are slowing down the pace of recovery, he said: “Increased diesel prices are a headwind that the industry is facing but the freight demand has been up and freight rates are climbing up as a result of which profitability has come back.”

Buses, which had been hit the most during the pandemic with people shying away from shared transportation, are seeing a gradual recovery as the vaccinated population have started using them

“Google mobility index is up. Intra-city mobility has resumed with IT sectors bringing back employees to offices and office transportation has begun. A reversal of reverse migration has started as workers are travelling back to their work places. Sleeper coaches, long distance buses are back on the roads. ,” said Wagh.

Clean fuel

Talking about the transition to cleaner fuel, Wagh said Tata Motors took the leading role in FAME Phase 1 and delivered 600 EV buses.

“We have now 20 million kilometer experience of EV bus running and will utilise this experience into improving our products,” said Wagh.