June 2015
Safety Concerns
All the vehicle manufacturers wish to increase their sales volumes in the country but are they really working on reducing the fatalities caused due to lack of proper safety features? It is tough to reply to this question as Indians always look on ‘More for Less’ which will be a difficult task for the vehicle manufacturers and component manufacturers to offer all the safety features at an affordable cost. In India, about 1.2 million people died in car accidents over the past decade, on an average 1 every 4 minutes, while 5.5 million were seriously injured. This is due to lack of customer awareness, untrained drivers, inadequate law enforcement, badly maintained roads and unavailability of safety equipments.
Therefore reacting to the current situation, global Tier 1 suppliers have started working on developing an affordable solution to suit the Indian requirements. OEMs like Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Volkswagen and Toyota have made air bags as a standard fitment in all their new cars sold here since last year. Car makers have also added safety features such as anti-lock brakes and electronic steering assistance in recent years. To increase the safety, till date lot of technologies are available but are customers ready to pay for the extra penny? To address this issue, government has to take necessary actions by implementing safety rules and making airbags and ABS as a standard fitment in all the vehicles including two-wheelers.
To discuss about the cost effective safety systems and the latest technologies that are available in the market, the current issue of Auto Components India focuses on Automotive Safety Systems. Companies like Continental, Bosch, DSM, Honda Motorcycles & Scooters India (HMSI) and few others shared their views on latest and affordable solutions that can make India safer.
In Shopfloor Sojourn we have covered the newly inaugurated Scania Bus Plant in Bangalore, where the entire bus production is covered and speaks about the company’s future plans to increase the local content. On the other hand we have covered the BMW India’s localisation program, which has currently increased its local content by 50%.
Hope you find this issue interesting. Looking forward to your feedback.
Bhargav TS
Executive Editor
s.bhargav@nextgenpublishing.net
