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In sharp contrast, today, India is the seventh largest vehicle manufacturer, the second largest two wheeler manufacturer and the fifth largest commercial vehicle manufacturer in the world.The Indian auto industry today churns out a large number of new model and variant launches every year and exports almost 12% of the vehicles produced by it to the most competitive auto markets globally.Even the bravest analyst could not have taken the risk of making such a bold forecast not so far back in time.
The past ten years have witnessed a six fold increase in the auto industry turnover and the automotive exports have grown by almost twenty times.As a result, the automotive industry today contributes 22% to the manufacturing GDP and 21% of the total excise collection in country.In 2010-11, the total turnover and export of the Automotive Industry in India reached new pinnacle of US $ 73 billion and US $ 11 billion respectively with the cumulative announced investments reaching US $ 30 billion. This sector truly represents a shining example of an effective Industry-Government collaboration and the kind of results that can be achieved in a relatively short span of time with the right kind of support from the Government, combined with the entrepreneurial skills and managerial talent that the Indian Industry has to offer.Although there seems to be a bit of a slowdown of growth of the auto industry in the recent past, this is just transient and now the industry is fully back on track for achieving the Auto Mission Plan targets for 2016, which were unveiled by the Prime Minister in 2007.
The growth of the transportation sector also brings with it the challenges associated with rapid depletion and the rising cost of fossil fuels, the impact of vehicles on the environment and climate change.These are areas of grave concern not only to the Governments around the world but also to industry experts and automobile leaders alike.
In order to bring about a paradigm shift in transportation, the reinvention will need to happen from the individual firm level to the industry level as a whole duly supported by the Government. Each individual organization will need to continuously strive to offer completely new products and solutions.However, inertia and resistance to change, especially when times are good, is the gravest threat as nothing stops an organization faster than people who believe that the way you worked yesterday is the best way to work tomorrow.The Indian automobile industry will need to pay greater focus on R&D and invest more for sustainable transportation through developing or acquiring newer & better technologies.This will include the introduction of alternate drives and fuels, especially electric mobility, to lessen the dependence of fossil fuels and also to mitigate the impact of vehicles on the environment and climate change.In order to help the industry meet these challenges, the government will continue to play a key facilitative and supportive role.
In this regard, the required enabling mechanisms for meeting these future challenges are being set up.In this regard, two very significant initiatives for the automotive sector are being presently undertaken by the Government.For spurring greater adoption of electric mobility and manufacture of electric vehicles, including full range of hybrid vehicles, the Government has approved the “National Mission for Electric Mobilityâ€