Growing aspirations of consumers for vehicles will pose a challenge to auto industry to develop products at challenging price points.
R Seshasayee, executive vice chairman, Ashok Ley-land said these mobility solutions are important for gro-wth in the coming decades given the relentless rate of urbanisation.
“Aspirations of people to own vehicles will go up even at lower per capita income levels, challenging the industry to develop products at better price points,” he added.
The auto industry is often the whipping boys when it comes to emissions and pollution, he said.
This notion will continue in future and there is a need to push for effective alte-rnative fuels.
Meanwhile, Venu Srinivasan, CMD, TVS Motor, country’s third largest three-wheeler company, by sales, said it is imperative for the automobile industry to push for urban planning for susta-inable growth of the industry and the biggest challenge going forward would be pollution. He was giving the inaugural address at the Asia Pacific Automotive Conference (APAC16), a three conference organised by SAE India. He said, “We need to take a leadership position and have to join forces with NGOs working for urban planning or we cannot sell our products,” said Srinivasan.
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It needs a great political will and calls for a social revolution, he said. “As a country we are good in passing laws, but we fail to put it in action.”
The country must promote a multi-model transportation system with a proper planning. For instance, presently the system which is being implemented does not have a proper parking system, bus lanes etc., The other major challenge for the industry is pollution. It was estimated that India will triple pollution levels to 3.3 GT by 2030 from 1.1 GT in 2005.
As the vehicle speed is dropping to 10 km per hour, the carbon di-oxide emissions go up by 60 per cent, he said. The positive side is that the industry will grow to $165 billion and India will become the third largest market.
The number of passen-ger vehicles will touch 9.3 million, CVs to 2.7 million and motorcycles will reach 30 million, according to Srinivasan.