January was a very busy month for the DVN team with the Delhi Auto Expo in India, the US DVN workshop and the North American International Auto Show in Michigan, the US National Academy of Sciences Transportation Research Board meeting and the SAE Government-Industry meeting in Washington DC, and other important events like IAL Stuttgart.
DVN present this week the 2012 Delhi Auto Expo and are proud to publish our first report about this major auto show. India, the world’s second-fastest growing auto market, is in top-gear growth. The country is a hot destination for automobile manufacturers due to its robust economic growth, favourable demographics, higher disposable income, changing lifestyle and positive industrial ecosystem. India is expected to become the third biggest auto-producing country in the world within the next decade. Auto Expo 2012 was all about SUVs and MPVs. There were some exciting products such as Maruti Suzuki’s compact Ertiga MPV, Ford’s compact EcoSport SUV, and Bajaj’s RE60.
With the presence of almost all global automobile players in India, it is evident that now advanced-technology products are being introduced in the Indian market to showcase design and technical abilities to consumers. India being still a huge potential market, all the OEM’s are very cautious on price, delivery and quality parameters. The Indian automobile market has till now been home only to basic lighting systems, so there is huge potential in this area. The design and manufacturing capabilities for delivery of technological advance products like LED based products using mirror tunnels, edge light using light guides, glowing-body lighting and head lamps with LED’s, Xenon, AFS, and BiXenon are presently available with current automotive lighting product manufacturers in India. The Indian Automotive industry is served its lighting primarily by Lumax (J.V.with Stanley), India Japan Lighting (J.V.with Koito), Minda Industries, Magneti Marelli, Valeo, Visteon , Rinder , Neolite-ZKW , Fiem, and Hella. In 100 pages and 400 pictures, Driving Vision News presents all the new cars exhibited in Delhi and their lighting equipment in relation with styling, safety, and energy consumption reduction. I hope you will enjoy reading it.
Sincerely yours,
DVN General editor