CII Automotive Innovation Summit 2022

The CII Automotive Innovation Summit 2022 deliberated on innovation linked to the future of mobility. Raghul Krishnan looks at the fine print.

- Raghul Krishnan

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) - Southern Region concluded a successful edition of the Automotive Innovation Summit 2022. The focus at the summit was innovation linked to the future of mobility. Drawing attention to a challenging decade that the industry must prepare for, Dr N Sarvanan, Summit Chairman and President and Chief Technology Officer at Ashok Leyland Ltd., cited the new age transitions of the industry. The new energy matrix must be looked at in totality, he exclaimed. Beyond EVs, the focus must also be on Hydrogen fuel cells and the next generation of Internal Combustion Engines (ICE). “The challenge is increased twofold as the OEM’s are not sure of the future technologies and investing in various applications,” he admitted.

Looking at various trends, it was safe to presume that the Government is paying equal attention to introducing active safety features regarded as the building blocks for autonomous driving. Among other trends cited, the leasing model of commercial vehicles, like the pay per kilometre usage basis under the Gross Contract Carriage (GCC) model firmed up with State Transport Undertakings (STUs) found a prominent mention at the summit. It is expected that the future fleet owners will also look to a 100 per cent zero-emission transition of their fleets starting with EVs. It were mentioned that the fast transition from mechanical to electronic requires the industry to identify the apt software layer besides core understanding in light-weighting of vehicles as a result of many mechanical components not finding a place in the next generation of powertrains. Battery pack evolution, faster development, Vehicle-to-Infrastructre (V2X) and digital tools also found a mention at the summit.