Change is the only constant; and, the change is happening at a faster pace. The automotive industry must adapt to this change and look at multi-modal transportation a lot seriously.
Addressing a gathering at the third edition of Motion In Control (MIC), Dr Tapan Sahoo, Executive Director (Engineering), Maruti Suzuki India Limited and Chairman (SAENIS), said that based on ongoing societal changes, mobility is transforming and the overall global trend is widely known as ACES (Autonomous, Connected, Electric and Shared). He went on to highlight the uniquenesses of India and said that the ACES in India context need to be Affordable & Assisted, Connected & Shared, Environment friendly and Safe
He said that in order to achieve carbon neutrality in India context, multiple powertrain options like CNG, Biofuels besides strong hybrid electric vehicles and and BEVs (electric vehicles). India needed a new mobility approach to reduce the need and the length of travel and urged that the Indian industry should look at multi-modal transportation to take care of mobility needs of the country.
The two-day MIC session aims to educate the budding engineers on the emerging trends in the automotive industry and help them to cope with the transition for the future. Dr Sahoo felt that the skills of the budding engineers needed to be enhanced to cope up with the pace of the change.
Vehicle Dynamics
Prahsant Vijay, Deputy General Manager, ICAT, said that the automobile industry was undergoing a phase shift. Nevertheless, he reckoned that the vehicle dynamics still and would always remain a key consideration. Hence, the engineers need to adapt to these changes even while keeping their focus on vehicle dynamics, he added.
VK Mishra, Technical Director, JK Tyres, said that the transformational computation in development of tyres was gaining momentum with the advent of new age technologies.
‘Man- Machine- Math’ model could help in catalysing tyre testing, he added. The digital mock-up, he said, helped in tyre tuning. Digital tuning integrated with data analytics helped in validation in both virtual and real world scenarios, he added.
Current Scenario
S Ramanathan, Managing Director, Automotive Test Systems, said that a few years ago he was struggling to find vehicles with ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) in India for an event. However, this time around, he was able to manage to bring down four vehicles with ADAS for track demonstration. Technologies such as ADAS could save lives as they prevented the drivers from drifting and crossing the red lights among.
“As things stand now, the global ADAS market is said to reach $72 billion by 2027 due to rising consumer interest with ¾ contributions from the passenger vehicle side while the rest by commercial vehicle space,” said Ashim Sharma, Senior Partner, Nomura Research.
He expected the ADAS market in India to grow to $1.8 billion by 2027 at 13% CAGR due to consumer awareness about safety and Government’s push to reduce accidents. The rate of highway growth, according to him, is expected to go to 50 km per day from the current 26 km per day which, in turn, would push for safer vehicles.
While the enabling conditions for ADAS in India were poised to improve, a robust phased introduction plan for ADAS features must be in place, he said.
In this view, movement towards Intelligent Traffic Management System has already started in road traffic dense cities such as Delhi and Bengaluru. “Once the technology is proven, it can be an ideal measure to improve enforcement of better traffic behaviour,” he added.
National Road Safety policy launched by the Government, too, aims to improve road safety through increasing awareness, enhancing road engineering and infrastructure along with improved law enforcement.
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