New Delhi, Dec. 15: Eicher Motors plans to launch tippers in the next two months.

?We are piloting the tipper project and should be ready to launch it in the next couple of months,? said Rakesh Kalra, chief executive (commercial vehicles) of Eicher Motors.

Refusing to divulge the price of the tipper, company officials said Eicher would launch four-wheeled power- steered tippers with a capacity of 16 tonnes.

Tata Motors? tipper series launched yesterday is priced between Rs 36-39 lakh, significantly lower than similar models by foreign rivals like Tatra and Volvo, which are priced above Rs 45 lakh.

The tipper market in India is estimated to have sales in the region of 25,000-30,000 units annually.

Tippers are used both for road building and other construction work as well as by mining companies.

Eicher, which offers vehicles in the 5-25-tonne range, is eyeing the heavy commercial vehicle market and plans to launch vehicles going up to 40 tonnes.

?We plan to go up to 40 tonnes, though many of the products are in the drawing board stage. Most of the research and development for this is being done in-house,? said Kalra.

Eicher today launched the E2 series of light commercial vehicles. This includes models in the 7-11-tonne range. The trucks have been priced between Rs 6.59 lakh and Rs 6.96 lakh (ex-showroom, New Delhi).

Talking to newspersons about the company?s US-based engineering design arm ? Design Intent Engineering (DIE), Eicher chief operating officer Siddharth Lal said the company was planning to shift some of the work to India.

?We are working towards shifting 50 per cent of the job to India,? he said, adding that it was focusing on Asian car companies at the moment.

Eicher Motors enjoys a 6 per cent market share of the 2,35,000 big commercial vehicle segment in the country. The company sold 23,004 units in 2004-05 and expects to finish the current financial year with a growth of 6.5 per cent.