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Originally Posted by hvkumar  I am rather surprised that a company like Tata which buys engines from Cummins has a "proper R&D" but AL which has a working relationship with Hino since the early 80s and makes its own engines (and good ones at that) is considered deficient! I hope it will be remembered that the widest product range and most product innovations (when all Tata could bring out was the 1210) were from the AL stable - the double decker, the vestibule truck, rear-engine low-floor bus, the multi axle truck, extra-long bus chassis, the front-door Viking buses, the Stallions, the formidable range of tractor-trailers, to quote a few that I know of. Till Tata came out with the 407, I doubt whether telco-ites knew there was a R&D department in their company!! Look back at Telco during the DMB days (prior to 1980) and I don't see too many things coming out of its R&D. |
The DMB days were prior to 1970, not 1980!
Telco had set up a full-fledged R&D department (called ERC or Engineering Research Centre) by the time the collaboration with Daimler Benz came to an end in 1969.
The 1210 itself was designed and produced indigenously. It had a direct injection engine whereas the Mercedes truck license produced by Tata earlier had indirect injection engine. 1210 was more fuel efficient and also more powerful than the Mercedes truck it replaced.
Similarly trucks like 1516, 1616, 1210-4X4, 1516-4X4, 1312, 807, 610, etc. were indigenously designed. 407 and Tatamobile 206 came much later. Even if the designs lacked 100 % originality, none of them involved borrowing technical drawings or other expertise from abroad, the way AL did.
Yes, AL had a wider product range than Tata in those days, but their CVs weren't designed indigenously.