CII’s 5th Annual Conference on Automotive R&D Trends is a continuation of an annual series that has grown in terms of participation, scope and stature. For 2013, the theme chosen was ‘Cost Effective Green Mobility’.
Having addressed the relevant topics of Automotive Electronics, Powertrain Efficiency, Vehicle Safety and Intelligent Vehicles, the theme chosen this year reflected the growing global concern for green mobility. At the same time, recognizing India’s growing credibility for frugal engineering and innovating to cost advantage, it was appropriate that the general focus should continue on solutions and technologies that are affordable and will find appeal across the globe through their cost efficiency.
When one thinks of green mobility, one is often drawn to images of electric or hybrid electric vehicles. Products such as the Toyota Prius, Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt and even India’s own Mahindra Reva have often been the poster children for green mobility. Yet, commercial scaling and success of these products has, more often than not, been mired in economic and technological challenges. Similarly, many of the leading edge component manufacturers, particularly suppliers of advanced batteries, have also seen considerable growth pains and many prominent technology suppliers have fallen by the wayside. For a resource and capital-constrained country like India, such a journey is really expensive.
This topic, to address relevance in India, must not only address individual vehicular technologies but must also address the system view of mobility, so that transportation demands will be met in a most cost competitive manner hugely scalable for mega cities and at the same time environmentally friendly. In other words, for India, cost-effective green mobility also requires system thinking.
Societies and cities will need to address not only multi-modal transport systems, but also focus on specific choices of primary energy and individual vehicular technology. The conference managed to cover a balanced blend of these several factors. Through topics such as Automotive Body Technology for weight reduction, improved combustion processes, exhaust emission systems and reduction of parasitic losses, the auto industry is racing ahead like never before, to improve individual system efficiencies.
In India, automakers are found to offer a spectrum of local solutions ranging from Bajaj Twinspark combustion, Ashok Leyland’s World’s first Plug in CNG hybrid electric bus and Mahindra’s Reva City EV. While these have promising starts, the pace of development needs to further accelerate in India.
Also, transport system and infrastructure are expected to significantly contribute to cost-effective green mobility. Meanwhile, intelligent highways could help avoid traffic congestion and resultant pollution and huge advances in V2V (vehicle to vehicle communication) in future. Taking together, this is an exciting period for India, and as the whole world looks to greener mobility, one hopes that, with the stimulus provided by this conference and its numerous global participants, India can play an important role in showing the world cost-effective green mobility solutions.