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Indian Automotive Industry – Lightweighting Scenario
13 May 2019
(Excerpt)
Lightweighting has been repeatedly touted as one of the
most-favored OEM strategies to meet the stricter deadlines and
demands of the future business, especially considering the
increased regulations over emissions, fuel efficiency and safety
standards. Globally, lightweighting has been progressively making
its way in the design DNA for OEMs as well as suppliers. As a
result, the increase in kerb weight of cars for European and
American markets, year-on-year, has been decreasing and
stabilizing. However, the Indian automotive industry has
traditionally been a mass market segment, especially in the A &
B segment cars. For decades, the largest selling cars in India were
the entry segment cars and were aimed at a customer segment, which
was mileage-hungry. Hence the OEMs produced extremely light
vehicles with turbocharged engines that made the final kerb weight
of the vehicle stay well below 1,000 kgs. Not surprisingly,
lightweighting per se was not a separate requirement for
the Indian automotive industry, and weight reduction was therefore
seen mostly as a kaizen* (Japanese business philosopy of
continuous improvement of working practices and personal
efficiency) activity once the initial car was launched. The
philosophy of 1 part - 1-gram weight reduction ingrained deeply in
the vendor development thereafter was the major driving force
towards knocking off mass sequentially.
However, the past 3-4 years have led to the rise of optional
content in the Indian cars. This is partly driven by the rise of
dispensable income for Indian customers and the rise in
expectations in terms of the features in the car. The launch and
growth of the MPV segment is another driver where customers are now
expecting the cars to be bigger, feature-rich and with better
driving experience. All this, while mileage expectations of the
customers have remained the same and emissions and safety standards
have grown even tighter along the global norms. Also, given that
most Indian car models nowadays resemble/match their global launch
cousins, feature additions and therefore the weight must be on a
par with global levels. The cost vs weight vs features vs norms
conundrum is what is making the Indian automotive market a true
mystery, and lightweighting can be a true hero to the rescue.
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