More likely due to bribery
Indonesia itself has the same products and it has been pretty long under heated debate on TV, Parliament
Go read what Agrinas itself said. They need around 160,000 vehicles for the cooperative programme and the kind of 4x4 pickup they need isn't locally produced there. Most of what Indonesia makes in this segment is 4x2. These vehicles are supposed to run around villages, plantations, farms and crappy rural roads carrying stuff, so they specifically wanted proper 4WD workhorses.
And this is exactly the kind of vehicle India has been building forever.
That's why 105,000 out of those 160,000 went to Tata and Mahindra. Tata got 70,000 CV orders: 35k Yodhas and 35k Ultra T.7 trucks and Mahindra another 35k Scorpio Pik Ups. Japanese and Chinese vehicles are supposed to make up part of the remaining requirement.
There's a scale problem too. Your own industry guys put Indonesia's normal 4x4 pickup market at only around 26k a year and light trucks at something like 3k a month. Agrinas also said normal domestic production was around 70k units and suddenly asking local companies to cough up this kind of volume could screw with vehicles they're already supplying to other logistics customers.
Price was another reason Agrinas gave for going outside Indonesia. GAIKINDO obviously wasn't happy and argued Indonesian manufacturers could compete if taxes and regulations were equal. That's their argument with Agrinas, not mine
End result is still 105,000 Indian vehicles.
And have you actually looked at the Scorpio they're buying? 2.2L mHawk diesel, 320 Nm, proper 4WD, 4Low and mechanical locking diff. Nothing fancy about it. It's basically a diesel workhorse made to get worked on bad roads while carrying a load.
Funny thing is your own journalists already drove this thing in Indonesia years ago. Okezone took the Scorpio through mud, rocks and off-road sections around Bogor in 4L and liked the high seating position, visibility and how it handled the rocky stuff. GridOto threw it at rocks, climbs, side slopes, deep water and rough tracks and it got through them. Another Indonesian review praised the low end diesel torque under load, visibility and the fact that it works on both normal roads and rough terrain.
Even when Mahindra first brought it there, Indonesian auto media were putting it alongside the Hilux, Triton, Ranger, D-Max and Navara and pointing out the price difference.
That's what makes the whole thing funny. Indonesia already has a good auto industry. Japanese companies have been there for decades and Chinese companies are pouring in now too. Yet when you suddenly needed a ridiculous number of rugged 4x4 commercial vehicles, there was still a hole in your local product lineup.
India already had that exact shit sitting on production lines.
105,000 out of 160,000. That's basically the whole story
www.ecofinagency.com
