India offers huge opportunities for vehicle manufacturers: Nissan COO

NEW DELHI: India offers huge opportunities for vehicle manufacturers and electrification is the pillar that could transform the country’s automotive industry, Nissan Motor Corporation COO Ashwani Gupta said on Thursday.

Speaking at the 61st Annual Session of Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA), he encouraged Indian firms to adopt digitalisation in a variety of areas, including businesses, processes and consumer experience to transform the industry by letting individual innovations become ‘disruptions’.

“India is the fourth largest (automotive) market. In five to six years, it should be the third-largest market. However, there is a big opportunity,” he said, adding the low car penetration of just 20 per 1,000 offers a “huge opportunity in front of us”.

He further said, “The challenge, which we all have, is how we are going to capitalise on this opportunity. I would say once again that electrification is the pillar, which could clearly transform the Indian automotive industry”.

Citing Nissan’s example, he said by 2030, 100 per cent of the company’s cars will have the electrified options, while in Europe it will be by 2026.

In 2026, the total cost of ownership, price point, and driving excitement seen from the customer on electric cars will be for sure better than the ICE (internal combustion engine) cars, Gupta asserted.

“This is where the tipping point (is) and we all have to work towards this tipping point so that it becomes a natural choice for the customer to go for electrification,” he added.

As for India, to achieve the transformation, Gupta said the country’s “great know-how” of digitalisation must be utilised to foster innovations.

“We in India are doing innovations. However, we are limiting it to individual innovation,” he said, adding this has prevented innovations from becoming ‘disruptions’.

However, he said the challenge can be overcome through digitalisation. “It is not digitalisation of data. It is the digitalisation of processes. It is the digitalisation of business. It is the digitalisation of customer experience, digitalisation of end-to-end, and that’s how I think we can achieve the disruption,” Gupta added.