New safety, emission rules spell riches for parts firms

Anti-lock brakes? Sound alerts for EVs? Ever-changing emission norms? For India’s nimble auto parts makers, every new regulation to raise safety and lower pollution is opening up business avenues.

- Ayaan Kartik

Automakers are rushing to win relaxations new norms.

Over the next two years, anti-lock braking systems (ABS), acoustic vehicle alerting system (Avas), corporate average fuel emissions III (CAFE III) and tractor emission norms stage V (Trem V) will be mandatory for various classes of vehicles. The whole industry will switch to Bharat Stage 7 emission norms in the next few years, though the dates are not set yet. Among the component makers seeing opportunities in the advancing technologies are Bosch Ltd, Tenneco Clean Air India Ltd, Endurance Technologies Ltd and Uno Minda Ltd.

The new rules will help achieve higher content per vehicle, said Arvind Chandrasekharan, chief executive at Tenneco Clean Air India. “(Higher) content per vehicle comes in two parts. One is legislation. For example, BS6 going to BS7, Trem IV going to Trem V for tractors, and CAFE norms, which will force a gasoline particulate filter in passenger vehicles,” Chandrasekharan said.