The Future of Self-Driven Cars in India

What will self-driving cars mean for India?

This is a common question given the Indian government’s recent efforts to push the country in the direction of a more sustainable future.

The Indian government has stated that the country will need to move away from fossil fuels and adopt a low-carbon development strategy by 2030 if it wants to meet its ambitious climate change goals. But if you think about it, India is a perfect place to start driverless cars. India has a massive population, and many people don’t have access to reliable or affordable transportation. This is why the country is perfect for driverless cars. In recent times, the race toward making self-driving cars (AVs) or self-driving cars have made a huge leap as many car players and tech giants are investing huge capital in it. Many of them have even already started test trials in countries like the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, China and others. Unlike its global counterparts, the Indian auto sector appears to be slowly heading towards it.

 

India lagging in the race to make self-driving cars

The main reason for the lack of awareness about this technology among the masses is the lack of proper awareness of the technicalities and complexities involved in developing an AV. Also, the Indian market is yet to witness a paradigm shift in terms of hybrid and electric vehicles. However, the global players are quite confident about the development of AVs in India. On March 8, 2018, Kapsch TrafficCom signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) to ensure that the Indian road transportation industry goes through an autonomous shift. The company intends to support the Government of India’s initiative to introduce future-ready vehicles in the country. 

 

While the push towards the actual commercialisation of AVs is now, likely, they will drastically change the way we travel. More so, in the coming decades, the advent of AVs will also give rise to a host of exciting job opportunities, which would be of great benefit for the youth, especially those working in the digital and tech industry. Unlike manual driving, the automated car has the potential to reduce one of the biggest causes of death on our roads - road accidents. At least the U.S. Department of Transportation says so. According to the department, road accidents are responsible for 1.25 million deaths a year, or about 30% of all deaths worldwide. In India, a person is killed in a road accident every three hours.

 

Takeaways

• From the report of the KPMG Autonomous Vehicle Readiness Index 2019, India ranks 24th out of 25 countries on the list. The list indicated the willingness of countries to adopt the practices of autonomous vehicles. The Netherlands topped the list.

• Countries like Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Norway and China are currently experimenting with cars. China is on the right track to commercialising autonomous vehicles by 2025. A recent survey by the Beijing Center for Innovation in Mobility Intelligence states that 77 autonomous vehicles were tested for more than a million kilometres in the country.

• The self-driving car scenario in India seems promising and India's burgeoning automobile industry could gain huge opportunities, while also leading to massive disruptions in the transportation industry. As per the latest research report published by Transparency Market Research (TMR), the demand in the Indian self-driving cars market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 36.0% within a forecast period from 2017 to 2025. On the other hand, the global self-driving cars market is expected to reach $31.5 billion by 2025 from a valuation of just $4.6 billion in 2016. Hence, it is imperative to invest in the development of vehicles capable of automatically adapting to changing road conditions.

ණ Rupjyoti

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