Scania has unveiled its new fully imported CBU Touring Coach at a special dinner during the BIC conference in Port Douglas on the weekend.
The Scania Touring Coach which is being imported ready to go from a joint venture coach body factory in China meets the recently changed coach GVM rules as a two axle 18-tonne GVM 57-seater and fits the width and height rules at 2.5m wide and 3.8 metres high.
Scania says the Touring uses a Scania designed body, which is built and fitted by Higer in China where Scania has been involved in a joint venture for many years.
The Scania Touring Coach uses a Scania two axle chassis and comes with a smorgasbord of power options with the choice of a five-cylinder 9-litre 360 hp, Euro 6 engine with a ZF six-speed automatic, or eight-speed Opticruise automated gearbox, a Euro V compliant 360hp 9-litre six-cylinder engine fitted with the eight-speed Scania Opticruise or the top power 410hp/2150Nm 13-litre six-cylinder Euro 6 again using the eight-speed Scania Opticruise.
While the Scania is built in China it bristles with all of Scania’s latest technology and safety systems and comes with a 57 seat capacity 9cubic metres of luggage space.
“The Scania Touring has proved itself in around the world and our customers will enjoy bumper-to-bumper Scania quality and reliability,” said Scania Australia’s new national sales director for Bus and Coach, Julian Gurney.
Scania is claiming the new Scania Touring will be extremely cost-effective to purchase and run, clearly thanks to its sourcing from the company’s JV factory in China.
Scania says it hopes to have the first retail stock of the new Touring Coach landed within the next few weeks and potentially buyers who order now could have their vehicle in service before Christmas.
Scania claims that the Touring has been engineered to meet the specific needs of Australian operators with an all-steel 12.3-metre body, which it says exceeds all European rollover test requirements.
The company says its new Touring has ABS, EBS and electronic stability control as standard with a range of other extra safety including advanced emergency braking, adaptive cruise control and lane departure warning.
The two-axle Scania Touring is as we said assembled on a dedicated and separate Scania facility within the Higer operation in China with the company saying it has full control of manufacturing and quality.
In fact Scania says the Touring shares many of the advantages of the Scania-Higer A30 which has been sold in Australia for more than ten years.
Scania has sold The Touring successfully in other global markets for some time including Europe, Africa and Asia, as well as the UK.
Scania says the Touring is built in what it describes as a “bespoke and dedicated production facility” close to the Scania-Higher A30 assembly line in Suzhou, near Shanghai.
Scania has been working with Higer since 2004, and the company says the partnership provides it with a way to satisfy the needs of new, emerging and existing markets around the world.
Scania sends a rolling chassis to the Suzhou factory from Sweden where it is fitted with its body.
The Scania Touring can be optioned to the operator’s spec with 49, 53, or 57 seats.
As has been the case with the Scania-Higer A30 program, Scania says it will aim to keep stock on the ground to enable fast order-to-delivery times.
Scania emphasises that one of the main advantages for customers buying the fully built up Touring is that here is a single point of contact for sales, service and replacement parts as well as routine maintenance and repairs through the company’s national network of factory owned branches and 46 service authorised service dealers.
Scania says the Touring is being offered with a five-year structure and paint warranty as well as a 12 months’ factory warranty on the chassis, and a two-year warranty on the driveline and every one is supplied with a Scania driver training session and four years complimentary vehicle monitoring.
The launch of the Touring is a big deal for Scania Australia with the change in two axle GVM rules allowing the company to press the go button to bring it here said Jesper Eriksson, Scania Group’s general manager for China who Truck and Bus spoke to at the launch.
Eriksson was at pains to point out that the Scania Touring Scania from ‘bumper-to-bumper’ and is built to meet the company’s high-quality standards every step of the way in its China production phase.
“It is a purpose-built facility in China and is exclusive to Scania and Scania-Higer products,” Eriksson told us.
“All stages of manufacturing are under our oversight and has now more than 3000 buses since 2009 and we use mass production techniques and tolerances in accordance with Scania standards that are the equal of any Scania plant in Europe,” he said.
While the launch of the Scania Touring only happened this week pre selling has clearly been underway and we are told around a dozen orders have already been taken.
Scania hosed down fears that bringing in a CBU coach such as the Touring would severely affect local body builders by explaining that the local industry is running well above capacity.
Scania PR man Alexander Corne explained that the company already takes up around 50 per cent of capacity with local body builders and that building slots are pretty much booked out till mid 2020.
Corne emphasized that volumes for the Touring will be modest initially and while the local body builders are at capacity the company doesn’t think the Touring will cause issues with the local builders.
We will have a full rundown on the Touring and an interview with Jesper Eriksson in he next issue of Coach & Bus
