How do you look at the Indian market? From WABCO's perspective, what is the significance of Indian market?
We are very positive about the Indian market from a longterm perspective as it has emerged as the global hub for auto component sourcing today. Various government initiatives and policies such as Automotive Mission Plan 2016-26, renewed and focused approach to R&D have helped the autocomponent industry achieve considerable growth over the years. Government's drive towards improving road infrastructure across the country, implementation of BSIV norms, Smart City initiative, Make in India initiative and many other such measures makes India an interesting place to be in now.
The Commercial Vehicle market has seen a rebound and started to grow rapidly in the last couple of months. Higher localization by OEMs and growing infrastructure along with adoption of new age technologies has opened up a wider market for companies like WABCO India. We continue to expand our capacity keeping in mind the tremendous scope India offers today. Today, WABCO India has emerged as the second pillar for WABCO with its five world class manufacturing facilities spread across India and global software development centre in Chennai.
As the Indian automotive industry is changing, how do you plan to align yourself with the new norms and regulations?
WABCO has been the pioneer and innovator of futuristic vehicle technologies and solutions for OEMs and fleet owners. The mission of the company has always been to develop competitive products that ensures safety, efficiency and connectivity of the commercial vehicles. WABCO leverages WABCO India's frugal engineering practices and lean manufacturing processes to jointly develop products which are globally competitive and cost effective.
Moreover, the new norms and regulations have paved way for more adoption and great acceptance of WABCO's technologies by the Indian OEMs. Some of the key products that WABCO India has been focusing on to enhance safety, efficiency and connectivity of commercial vehicles include:
Anti-Lock Braking Systems (ABS) is the first electronic system fitted in Indian trucks that monitors and controls wheel speed during braking. It helps steering control and vehicle stability during braking manoeuvres and is engineered to fulfil the braking legislations for commercial vehicles globally.
WABCO Automated Manual Transmission - (OptiDrive) is a modular transmission automation technology that is easily adaptable to a wide range of existing manual gearboxes. It relieves the driver fatigue of gear shifting operations and ensures appropriate gearing according to the traffic condition thereby resulting in better fuel efficiency of up to five percent.
WABCO India has also introduced Air Disc Brake (ADB) recently and is testing it with OEMs in India. ADB is lighter and capable of significant weight reduction and a 10 percent gain in the braking distance. We soon plan to localize ADB in India.
WABCO India has plans of introducing products revolving around Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) like Advanced Emergency Braking System (AEBS) in the future.
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