Component Makers Must Change Their Mindset on Scale, Says ZF India President

When a northeastern neighbour puts up a facility, “they decide on what is the world capacity and they put 80 percent of it there,” said Akash Passey, president of ZF Group India. “We are still very happy with five to seven per cent. So we need to change our mindset.”

“Don’t be so happy so soon. There’s a long way to go,” Passey remarked at the Autocar Professional EV Conclave 2026.

Power electronics capabilities are a crucial gap, which EVs require heavily, and it is “a very weak area we have”, Passey cautioned. “If we don’t put that in order … we will not make it.”

Demand is another challenge. Passey wants to localise “a lot of things on the EV side, but it doesn’t make a business case today because the volumes are not predictable.”

The working model has to shift, too. In ICE vehicles, suppliers are brought in when RFQs arrive. In EVs, they are brought in at the basic design stage. ZF considers itself a system integrator, Passey explained: “The time of just being a component manufacturer is gone.” Partnerships, on-time delivery and project management count for more, and Indian programmes add another brief: “value” and “frugal engineering” that meet price points in the market.

Platforms offer the engineering work, Passey noted. India is creating more than 50 in the car segment. ZF has around 5,500 engineers across 12 technical centres in India, though not all work on EVs.