Industry Talk MaKinG a diFFerence

from COMMERCIAL VEHICLE INDIA FEBRUARY 2023

BeYond pluG and pl aY

In an Industry Talk session, Yukihiko Noda, Deputy Managing Director, R&D and Shinya Watanabe, Deputy Managing Director and Chief Strategy Officer, Sales and Marketing spoke to Ashish Bhatia on making socially relevant solutions, specifically for India.

Q. How do you look at the Indian market and what’s the sentiment on growth prospects?

A. India is the third largest mobility country in the world. The government is giving a strong push to electrification and safety. For us, it is the priority country. We would like to make our contribution in building a safe, secure and sustainable society. The products are related to Connected Autonomous Shared and Electric (CASE). We are here to change the brand perception of Denso from an erstwhile powertrain and hardware-related products-only company. We are here to introduce social solutions beyond just hardware but Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) that combine hardware and software. We are introducing the cold reefer chain as one of the examples. In the future, we will work with our partners to contribute to an even greater extent.

Q. How do you plan to enhance the MaaS bouquet?

A. I’d like to say that MaaS at this moment is just a buzzword! Our products will be optimised in that direction. We are concentrating on the cold chain business and going forward we will penetrate deeper into the mobility segment with electrification is a big opportunity. adas is Where by 2028, We expect the indian government to at least mandate the installation of some functionalities. at that point, We expect demand to Witness a spike and shoW our product portfoliodriven competence. our offerings. We understand that innovation is very important to us. We are studying the Indian market to look at the social issues and areas where we can contribute in the future. The engineering department is looking at the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) and electrification including MaaS and solutions like Advanced Drive Assistance Systems (ADAS). We are active globally on these fronts. We collaborated with insurance companies and used our solutions to study driving patterns to enhance efficiencies in line with the Indian government’s vision to attain a ‘zero-accident’ level. Going beyond ADAS, drivers will be able to use our solutions to enhance their driving itself. Our R&D centre is developing multiple solutions and we are looking at ways of leveraging this capability at our disposal. We will understand India-specific needs together with OEMs to understand the unique set of requirements for custom solutions over just offering plug-and-play solutions. We expect to leverage internal mechanisms for a quick goto-market strategy.

Q. What are the growth and challenge areas as the market evolves at an unprecedented pace?

A. Electrification is a big opportunity. ADAS is where by 2028, we expect the Indian government to at least mandate the installation of some functionalities. At that point, we expect demand to witness a spike and show our product portfolio-driven competence. Until then we will leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) and software-led MaaS functions.