[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by Latheesh

Almost a decade ago we were checking the possibility of fitting AC in our off-highway machinery products. We interviewed many customers and operators during the process. Many owners said " Saar, I do not have air conditioned room or office, why should I get an machine with AC for my operator?"

Considering so many petty shops have AC in cities, things must have changed now, esp post NREGA. check again IMHO.

[Rahul Rao]

@ amitpunjani
You got it right regarding Air conditioners. See any premium car in a office or another parking lot, and most of them are idling away with the Ac on and the driver sleeping when the owner is away doing his work.
Unless you have denoted resting areas with creature comforts along with secure parking for trucks, the drivers are not going to leave their vehicles and will be using the Ac with engine idling. Ac use on the run when actually required will be minuscule, but idle usage will be high.

Rahul

[humyum]

Originally Posted by amitpunjani

Sincerely wish life was ideal, but is it so ever....

I do feel sorry for the truck drivers too in India. But imagine you being a truck owner... would you trust your driver so much that, sleeping in the truck for 8 hrs... he won't switch on the AC. The compressor would be working all the time because of engine heat as I guess once the compressor goes kaput.. no owner would be ready to shell out 20K for the replacement.

I strongly feel.. if Air con is provided in the trucks... you will find more trucks parked road side than on move.

Sorry mods for being

Well, we can have a timer in the truck which can check how long the air conditioning was used while the truck was stationary or how long the air conditioning was used for a particular trip. Lots of ways in which the unnecessary usage can be curbed. Look at some of the Mahindra Vehicles having a timer for AC on usage and vehicle without AC usage kilometers. The moral of the idea is to keep the driver comfortable so that he churns out more kilometers per day and his concentration remains on driving rather than on 'being tired' or feeling hot as heat is the major killer in India during most part of the year.

Once on a drive to Bangalore from Mumbai, we tried putting the windows down and tried to reminiscence the times we had an 800 and we would roll the windows down during extreme summers as the AC was pretty much useless. Within half an hour, we were done and exhausted and put the AC back on in the Swift. Imagine the truckers going through this everyday, day in day out. Its a tiring experience.

Originally Posted by Latheesh

Almost a decade ago we were checking the possibility of fitting AC in our off-highway machinery products. We interviewed many customers and operators during the process. Many owners said " Saar, I do not have air conditioned room or office, why should I get an machine with AC for my operator?"

Well, as India is progressing, so are the mindsets, 10 years back, an automatic car was only equated with pathetic mileage, a girl having a boyfriend was 'never acceptable', a forward 5 speed gearbox was a 'wow' factor, a trip to Leh by a car came in the 'are you mad?' category.

If we educated them on some of the advantages of AMT, Air conditioning, ABS driver comfort and equated all this with increased productivity with safer and more humanly working environments, I am sure things would change.

[svsantosh]

Originally Posted by GTO

Jugaad cruise control! I hope this is more the exception than the rule.

This is very much true Rush... it acts as a dead pedal for the A-Pedal, like a platform to rest the feet on to press the A-Pedal, also, when ankle hurts, just use your feet digits to slide it up the A-pedal and slide it down when not needed.

This Juggad mainly works because from the inception of time, Indian truckers overload their trucks and seldom let it go so fast that it needs A-B-C quick control.