Autocar Professional April 15 magazine – out now

The mid-month print edition of India’s leading automotive B2B title has rolled out. The cover story is all about the challenge for the country’s automotive sector – of finding the right skills and manpower to produce vehicles and components. If India, which is billed to be the world’s third-largest vehicle manufacturer by the turn of the decade, is to achieve its potential, ensuring a steady supply of high-quality manpower, across the spectrum of the industry, is the need of the hour.

It is known that, at present, most of the thousands and millions of students who graduate out of scores of institutions in the country are not industry-ready or immediately employable. Find out how the Layam Group of Chennai, which recognised the employability issue as one with both business potential and as a means of enabling automakers, has been providing industry with well-trained, quality personnel across the automotive value chain for nearly a decade now.

Ensuring sustainability of skilled workforce in the coming years will be critical to India’s automotive future, considering the passenger vehicle (PV) industry has in the last fiscal (FY2016-17) surpassed sales of 3 million units for the first time.

In our detailed 8-page sales analysis, we lay bare the vehicle data for the year under review. Find out how surging sales of SUVs have eaten into the passenger car market. Do you, for instance, know that SUVs constituted 12.5% of the PV market share in 2010-11 have now expanded their share to 25%? Or that cars, which had an overwhelming 79% market share of PVs then, have now contracted to 69%? We also reveal the Top 5 automakers across the PV, CV, 2-wheeler and three-wheeler segments.

India’s growing attractiveness as an automotive power can be seen in the fact that global and German component major ZF Friedrichshafen has recently set up an India Technical Centre in Hyderabad. Global CEO Dr Stefan Sommer foresees a sharp growth curve for its first such facility in India as well as for its business in India.

Bullish on growing its business out of India is engineering services and product development IT services provider, Tata Technologies. In an exclusive interview, CEO and managing director Warren Harris reveals plans to invest in new offices in China and the UK, divesting non-core businesses and effecting new acquisitions, starting later this month.

The April 15 issue also features an interview with Vinnie Mehta, director general of the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA).

Mehta speaks on the success of the recently held third ACMA Automechanika New Delhi trade fair, the Safer Drives initiative, the fast-growing Indian aftermarket and tacking the menace of spurious parts.

The huge business potential aftermarket is what is drawing new players. Autocar Professional meets three such companies – ARaymond Fasteners India, Ghaziabad Precision Products and KCTR Varsha Automotive.

Yesterday, Suzuki Motor Corporation, Toshiba and Denso announced plans to begin manufacture of lithium ion batteries in India. Their confidence in the potential of the growth of the EV industry in India could be well placed. Last month saw the third Battery Vehicle Expo and EV Show being held in Delhi where a large number of component makers, chassis suppliers and vendors of electric motors and controllers held sway.

Extending travel range is a key criterion for EV makers. Lightweighting will help them as well as makers of hybrids and conventionally fuelled vehicles. Whether it is reducing the wall thickness of injected moulded parts or tightening the size of a sealing system, Noida-based PPAP Automotive is offering new solutions to OEMs to reduce vehicle weight.

For advanced vehicle weight loss therapy, there’s always Audi with its Audi Space Frame. Find out how the revised body shell for the German carmaker’s 2017 A8 flagship incorporates steel, aluminium, magnesium and carbon fibre together for the first time, joined using 14 different processes.

That's not all. There's plenty of exciting industry news to keep you going through this weekend and more. 

Where to buy? 
Autocar Professional magazine is available through all good newsagents and for download from Magzter. 

You can also buy one-off copies – contact Ganesh at ganesh@haymarket.co.in. Alternatively, never miss an issue –subscribe to Autocar Professional magazine today. It's essential reading for the automotive industry.