India strong in auto manufacturing but lags in EV tech: Bosch India President Guruprasad Mudlapur

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Bosch India President and MD Guruprasad Mudlapur, in an interview with Business Standard, expressed optimism about manufacturing in the Indian auto industry but mentioned that it still needs to catch up with electric vehicle (EV) technologies like Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).

He said that technology alone isn't the only factor; insufficient infrastructure also plays a role. Moreover, significant progress is still required on the supply chain front, particularly in batteries and critical components.

Additionally, he said India is currently highly competitive in auto components and exports around 9–10% of its production, with a goal to double that by 2030.

However, he noted that challenges remain in areas such as just-in-time procurement and high logistics costs, which affect the landed cost of products globally.

When asked about the disadvantages India faces compared to China in terms of production costs, he said Beijing enjoys massive domestic volumes—often 4–5 times that of India—which gives it a cost advantage. This has also enabled quicker adoption of new technologies due to stronger consumer buying power.

Speaking on localisation, he said Bosch has achieved 80–85% localisation in technologies like BS4. For newer technologies, localisation starts at 30–35% and scales up gradually. Currently, all new products begin with at least 50% localisation.

However, low EV volumes (just over 100,000 passenger EVs sold) make it impractical to localise all components immediately. Subcomponents produced at scale elsewhere are imported to balance cost and viability.