Expensive airline flights? Increase the supply of bus. It happens in South America, where practically no country has a worthy railway network, so the alternative to traveling by plane remains the motorways and therefore, in the context of collective transport, buses. To understand the enormous potential of the Latin American continent, in particular the Brazil where after the pandemic the costs of airline tickets increased dramatically, to the point of becoming a political case (+50% the figure for December 2023, against a general inflation of 4,7% for the entire year), it was Mercedes-Benz. The German group is in fact betting on a 2024 dedicated to road travel and has already entered the market, announcing the increase in the offer of coaches. According to the manager Roberto Leoncini, vice president of the heavy vehicles unit of Mercedes-Benz Brazil, “the bet will work even if the Brazilian government finds a way to lower the price of air flights. The government's intentions are good, but the costs are too high and therefore, according to our assessments, this will not stop the demand for coaches this year."
Mercedes bets on coaches to reduce flight costs
Mercedes has not disclosed the investment figures nor how many more vehicles it will produce, but there is even the opportunity to produce them at lower prices, given that the slowdown in the Chinese market is favoring the availability of components, especially electronic ones, in the rest of the world. A probable reduction in costs would therefore compensate for the increase, reported between 10% and 20%, in the production costs of heavy vehicles last year, when the obligation to Euro 6 generation vehicles, which has existed in Europe since 2016 and which Mercedes is therefore already largely capable of offering. In the main South American market there were already signs of growth in road transport in 2023: throughout the year, according to data disclosed by National Registry of Motor Vehicles, 20.352 vehicles were marketed, an increase of 19% compared to 2022. But 2024 will be even more propitious, also because after the stop due to the pandemic, the public Caminho da Escola program is fully operational again, which allows millions of Brazilian children state schools, residents in rural locations or in any case difficult to access, to reach the institutes via coaches and buses made available at the expense of local authorities, from municipalities to state administrations.