- Robert Bosch GmbH, commonly known as Bosch, will invest Rs 2,000 crore in India in advanced automotive technology and digital mobility space.
- India is emerging as a global R&D hub in the autonomous automobile sector given its highly skilled engineers who are available at a comparatively low cost.
- No country has engineers at competitive rates in emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, Automation.
Around two and a half years ago, in an article titled ‘India becoming a global hub of R&D in autonomous automobile sector’, TFI argued that “the government should give a supporting hand” to the companies that have R&D centres in India and wants to establish manufacturing units also. The government launched the PLI scheme in 2020 and yesterday Bosch announced that it will localize its manufacturing.
Robert Bosch GmbH, commonly known as Bosch, will invest Rs 2,000 crore in India in advanced automotive technology and digital mobility space. The German automobile component major with annual revenue of 77 billion dollars has its largest research centre in Bengaluru. The automobile component maker with a history of more than 135 years in engineering and technology will utilize the Modi government’s Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme to localize production in the country.
The company has a history of a hundred years in India. It opened its first sales agency in Kolkata in 1922. It currently has 18 manufacturing sites and seven development and application centres, employing close to 31,500 associates. “Bosch India has brought together the best of German engineering and Indian entrepreneurship to develop innovative products across all segments,” said Stefan Hartung, chairman of the board of management.
India is emerging as a global R&D hub in the autonomous automobile sector given its highly skilled engineers who are available at a comparatively low cost. Just like low-cost software engineers made the country a software export hub, the availability of low-cost high-quality automobile engineers is ensuring that the global automobile majors shift their centres to India.
Today all the innovations in automobile components are happening with a combination of automobile engineering and software engineering and India has an abundance of resources for both. However, so far foreign companies like Mercedes-Benz, Bosch, General Motors used to see India as the only R&D centre because manufacturing was not competitive in the country.
But the Modi government took various steps on infrastructure, ease of doing business front that made manufacturing competitive in the country. Moreover, the is offering PLI for the sectors in which the country is dependent on foreign imports to ensure that production moves to India. Thus, companies like Bosch are now moving production also to India.
“Bosch India will remain true to its roots and evolve, innovate, and spark the next wave of big-ticket products and services. We will continue to pursue this vision for a digital, sustainable, efficient, self-reliant, and future-ready India,” said Soumitra Bhattacharya, MD of Bosch Limited and president of the Bosch Group in India.
In electric two-wheelers, India is expected to be a global leader. Also, the purchase of electric four-wheelers is growing exponentially in the last few years. The global automobile giants, especially the component markers, see India as the next big market and thus moving production to the country. Most of these companies already have R&D centres in India, now production is also moving in anticipation of high demand.
“We are the global leader in electric powertrain solutions. Bosch estimates that by 2030, every third new vehicle in India will be an EV. At the same time, depending on the use case/ customer strategy, the internal combustion engine (ICE) could also be electrified with mild and strong hybrids.
“The ICE remains an important part of the powertrain mix especially in commercial vehicles and off-highway segments,” the company said in a statement.
No country has engineers at competitive rates in emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, Automation. The leadership of the country in Information Technology and its strong presence in the automobile sector will make it the leader in the production of automobiles in the coming decades.