Ep. 274 - Designing Trucks with Sathiya Seelan Gangaasalam

Maa kaa aashirwaad, OK TATA Bye Bye, Hum Do Hamare Do, Mera Bharat Mahan - Sounds familiar? I am talking about the slogans written behind the truck. But we are not going to discuss those, rather the heavy vehicles on which these are written. Yes. Trucks.

In 1911, truck designer Charles Martin built a gasoline-powered tractor to pull modified horse-drawn commercial wagons. His most significant innovation, however, was the fifth-wheel coupler. A round plate with a central hole, it attached to the top of tractor frames to connect and support trailers. Trucks are broadly divided into light-duty, medium-duty, and heavy-duty classifications depending on their weight. And in today’s episode, we will try and introduce ourselves to how are trucks designed.

I am pleased to have Sathiya Seelan Gangaasalam with us on Audiogyan. He is currently Vice President of Design at Ashok Leyland. An industrial designer who has spent over 2 decades designing cars, trucks, busses, and three-wheelers. Sathiya is a Design thinker, mentor, and writer and also a passionate watercolor artist.

Questions

1. Can you paint us a landscape of Trucks and truck market in India? Who are the key players, what gets designed, manufactured in India and what’s imported and more?
2. Which sectors use Truck the most and for what purpose?
3. What are some of the principles on which a trucks are designed? How do you define success of a good truck design?
4. Do we have further classification of sub categories within light-duty, medium-duty, and heavy-duty trucks? Specially for India?
5. Can you tell us the brief stages involved while designing a truck or a heavy duty vehicle? From idea to hitting the market and evolution?
6. Why do truck manufacturers usually design a new model about every five to seven years?
7. Do we have special differences while designing heavy duty vehicles specifically for India?
8. Do companies spend time designing accessories (Bells and Whistles) for a truck which is mostly meant for work?
9. Tell us a little bit about the cabin - Safety features, Digital displays, Storage, Charging, Button start, sleeping, lights and more

Reference Reading

1. https://www.linkedin.com/in/sathiyaseelan-g-4bb95048/?originalSubdomain=in
2. https://www.dsource.in/resource/history-automotive-design-india/top-automotive-designers-india/sathiya-seelan
3. https://www.instagram.com/sathiyaseelangangasalam/?hl=en