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BOSCH Group announced today that its starter motor and generator division has now been christened as SEG Automotive, effective immediately. The Indian arm will be called as SEG Automotive India.

The established SG (Starter Motors &amp; Generators) is being expanded by an E for ‘Components for Electrification’. The company will operate under the leadership of Zhengzhou Coal Mining Machinery Group Co and an investment group.

The Zhenghou Coal Mining Machinery Group Cp., Ltd. (ZMJ) was established in 1958, and with the acquisition of Robert Bosch Starter Motors Generators Holding GmbH, the ZMJ group now comprises of a total of 22 subsidiaries, stock companies and holdings worldwide.

‘The name is new, but SEG Automotive is committed to continuity, especially in terms of location strategy and our employees. In the future, our locations in India will play an even more important role in the worldwide SEG Automotive business and continue to be an attractive employer in India. We strongly collaborate with our customers to remain as the preferred partner in the automotive industry,’ said Anil Kumar M R, Managing Director, SEG Automotive India.

The new company is committed to further expanding its contribution to the reduction of CO2 emissions from passenger cars and commercial vehicles in order to address the challenge of climate protection – globally and across all drive technologies.

With the BRM, SEG Automotive already offers a technology for hybridising gasoline and diesel engines in a cost-effective manner. Through the use of BRM, fuel consumption and CO2 emissions can be reduced by about 15 per cent.

Advanced start/stop technology as well as high-efficiency generators from the SEG Automotive portfolio also provide significant CO2 savings.

With 16 locations worldwide and over 8,000 employees, SEG Automotive is strongly positioned across the world to meet the current and future challenges of automobile manufacturers.

The management team that has made SG so successful in previous years will continue to ensure that SEG Automotive grows profitably over the long term.

‘With our product range, we efficiently support automobile manufacturers worldwide in the reduction of CO2 emissions – regardless of the drive technology. Together with the new owner ZMJ, SEG Automotive has a great potential for innovations and further global growth, in particular in the significant Chinese market,’ added Ulrich Kirschner, CEO of SEG Automotive.

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BOSCH SG is now SEG Automotive

The established SG (Starter Motors & Generators) is being expanded by an E for "Components for Electrification". 

Autonomous vehicles, the buzz is happening and while it is considered good to experiment with vehicles, the technology is progressing to have advanced driver assist systems to increase personal safety and&nbsp;minimise accidents on roads, but are we really ready, say, even for a minimal adoption?

“India is fourth largest autonomous car market, China being first followed by North America and speaking of mass adoption, currently, I believe there is a chicken and egg situation in India because unless there will be large scale adoption, technology will not be cheaper and if it is not cheaper it can never reach a mass scale adoption,” Ritukar Vijay, Head of Autonomous Technologies &amp; Business Strategy, Hi-Tech Robotic Systemz Limited (HRS), told autoX. 

HRS designs and develops artificial intelligence and autonomous driver assistive systems (ADAS) for commercial / passenger vehicles (trucks, busses, cars, etc.), and has a market share of over 90 per cent in India.&nbsp;

The company has developed “Novus Drive,” a full stack software for autonomous driving which takes input from various sensors including a primary perception indigenous sensor “Novus Pilot” and performs automated driving under constraint environments, city roads and highways.

<img alt="image 1" src="/uploads/2017/10/image-1.jpg" />

Driver-assist systems developed by HRS provide audible alerts if they sense a potentially dangerous situation, and some can even take action such as applying the brakes to avoid a collision or steering a car back into its lane.

“However, any ADAS systems developed by us will not be able to deliver efficiently unless infrastructure is changed or our driving habits. The way we think while driving is not same, lane cutting is common in Indian roads, different type of obstacles can come up, thus cross road coverage is necessary. For our systems to be safe and work smoothly we have analysed over two million images and video feeds and these above scenarios to learn from the Indian roads,” Vijay emphasized.

HRS has products right from L0 to L4 autonomy. L0 represents automated system issues warnings but has no vehicle control; Level 1 (”hands on”) means driver and automated system shares control over the vehicle; in L2 automated system takes full control of the vehicle (accelerating, braking, and steering); in L3 autonomy, the driver can safely turn their attention away from the driving tasks, e.g. the driver can text or watch a movie. &nbsp;In 2017, the Audi A8 Luxury Sedan was the first commercial car to claim to be able to do level 3 self-driving.

While in L4 self-driving is supported under special circumstances, like traffic jams, no human intervention is required in Level 5, for example a robotic taxi.

“India is still a decade away to be ready for a L4 autonomous vehicle, the good part being if anybody is born in 2017, will not require a driver licence by 2035 which is something that can be possible,” Vijay noted.

While the Autonomous Driver Assistive Systems (ADAS) systems represent serious advantages, including increased personal safety, less environmental harm, and reduced transportation costs, the bitter reality is that the impact of autonomous vehicles have less to do with technology but more with how proactively government and we as end users are efficient in embracing that technology.

According to a report from management consulting firm McKinsey, the autonomous technology will lead to drastic shifts in value chains, profit pools, and needed capabilities (for example, software expertise or cybersecurity) that could introduce entirely new industries within automotive. McKinsey expects Level 4 autonomy -- operating within virtual geographic boundaries -- to be disruptive and available between 2020 and 2022, with full adoption coming later.

“By 2020, L2 or L3 vehicles will be in the Indian market. One of our ADAS product will be mainstream in the first quarter of 2018,” Vijay said, adding that each year there will be incremental updates in terms of adding autonomy to it, for example, warning today and a year later there can be driver assist systems.

Full autonomy with Level 5 is projected to arrive by 2030. The advances that ADAS will bring will change the way people think about mobility in urban environments, but will also be largely dependent on how we adjust our driving habits with laws.

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Autonomous vehicles on the horizon, is India ready?

The autonomous vehicle technology is progressing to have advanced driver assist systems to increase personal safety minimise accidents on roads, but are we really ready, say, even for a minimal adoption?

Anuj Sharma

Articles By Anuj Sharma

BOSCH SG is now SEG Automotive

Autonomous vehicles on the horizon, is India ready?

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