Mahindra & Mahindra rides on smart mobility at Auto Show in Delhi

Mahindra & Mahindra Group showcases its future-readiness by displaying six electric vehicles that are clean, connected and convenient.

The Tatas showcased their love for smart cities in the 2018 Delhi Auto Show. They launched 26 smart city solutions. But the Mahindra and Mahindra group were not far behind. The company showcased its future-ready suite of passenger and mass mobility products. These solutions were created around the three ‘3Cs’ philosophy of Clean, Connected and Convenient.

“India has to be a leader in climate change. This is the time to develop sustainable mobility solutions for the future. The Future of Mobility is electric that offers clean, connected and convenient vehicles to our customers around the world.”

The mobility solutions include the UDO, a two-seater electric pod concept. Then there was the ATOM, an urban mobility solution. The group showcased the Treo, a lithium-ion battery powered electric three-wheeler.

Then there was the e2o NXT, which is a platform from their acquisition of electric car company. There was also an electric SUV called the eKUV100. To add colour to the proceedings there was the e-Cosmo, the company’s new electric bus.

The Mahindras through their technology arm Tech Mahindra are investing heavily in connected car solutions. It offers solutions in vehicle connectivity and use the cloud to take data from sensors, in cars, for predictive and prescriptive maintenance.

The aftermarket connected car suite built by this tech arm allows car manufacturers to use ruggedised Sim cards in the telematics unit and create solutions such car to home to car to infrastructure services.

By 2020, there will be a quarter billion connected vehicles on the road, enabling new in-vehicle services and automated driving capabilities, according to Gartner, Inc.

During the next five years, the proportion of new vehicles equipped with this capability will increase dramatically, making connected cars a major element of the Internet of Things (IoT). Gartner forecasts that the number of connected devices in the world will be 25 billion by 2020.

“The connected car is already a reality, and in-vehicle wireless connectivity is rapidly expanding from luxury models and premium brands, to high-volume midmarket models,” says James F. Hines, research director at Gartner.

Gartner forecasts that about one in five vehicles on the road worldwide will have some form of wireless network connection by 2020, amounting to more than 250 million connected vehicles. The proliferation of vehicle connectivity will have implications across the major functional areas of telematics, automated driving, infotainment and mobility services.

So Tata Motors and Mahindra and Mahindra are going electric and are investing in smart connectivity. But will it make India make 40 percent of their vehicles electric and connected by 2035 only time will tell. But the interest has already begun and Indian brands have taken the first steps.