With growing penetration of ADAS features in new passenger vehicles being introduced in India, Maruti Suzuki, which is yet to offer the safety technology in any of its products, says it is deeply evaluating the merit of the technology on our roads, and charting out a roadmap.
According to CV Raman, chief technical officer, Maruti Suzuki India Limited, "While it is possible to offer ADAS in our vehicles today, many of the functionalities cannot be used in the city, whereas some can only be leveraged on the highway. Therefore, we are looking at the value proposition to the end customer with respect to the beneficial usage of ADAS.”
Maruti Suzuki India, which has launched its flagship offering, Invicto, has chosen not to offer ADAS functions in the premium MPV, which is based on the Toyota Innova Hycross whose top-spec trim comes equipped with features like lane-keep assist, adaptive cruise control and cross-traffic alerts among others. The company is also behind its chief rivals Hyundai Motor India and Honda Cars India, which have introduced ADAS in the latest iterations of their midsize sedans, the Verna and City, respectively, which compete against the Maruti Suzuki Ciaz.
“ADAS must be relevant for India in the sense that it should be beneficial in avoiding or reducing accidents on our roads. Therefore, we are evaluating and charting out a roadmap, based on the technological relevance for our market,” says Raman.
“While the technology is available with Suzuki [Motor Corp], it is the merit of the technology in Indian conditions, as well as the value proposition to the customer, that is what we are looking at. We are extensively testing ADAS in India," Raman confirms.
The Indian automotive industry is witnessing a significant rise in the demand for ADAS tech with the need to enhance road safety and driving convenience. However, unlike developed economies, the country faces a significant challenge of poor road infrastructure such as the lack of standardised signage and lane markings, the prerequisites for the reliable functioning of the sensor-based safety technology.
Developing ADAS for the Indian market, therefore, requires adapting to these unique road infrastructure challenges. According to Ramanathan Srinivasan, managing director at Automotive Test Systems (ATS), “ADAS testing and validation is extremely complex, and requires evaluation of almost 200,000 scenarios on the track or in simulation.”
Growing level of ADAS penetration in India
On the other hand, leading passenger vehicle manufacturers such as Tata Motors, Mahindra, Hyundai, Honda, as well as MG Motor India, have started offering ADAS technologies in some of their popular models on sale in the country. The Mahindra XUV700, for instance, gets a raft of radar- and camera-based ADAS features such as lane-keep assist, adaptive cruise control, and blind-spot detection.
Hyundai is also witnessing strong consumer traction for ADAS features, and claims that the ADAS-equipped variants of its sixth-generation Verna sedan are contributing up to 15 percent of the model’s total sales. German technology supplier Continental, which globally supplies ADAS to its customers, is witnessing strong demand from the Indian market for its modular solutions, which could lower OEM costs by implementing a core technology across multiple platforms, and leveraging economies of scale.
In a recent interview with our sister publication Autocar Professional, Continental's ADAS business unit head, Franz Petznick, said, “We aim to make a solution which might not be customised to the last end for an OEM, but is easier to adapt to multiple car lines, and emerges to be cost-effective. This is what we need to target for India, and we are trying to bring these functions in a cost-effective application mode in India.”
“ADAS features are increasingly becoming a trend in the Indian market, and are likely to become more mainstream over the next three years,” Petznick had said.
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