Auto sector to have upgraded safety norms

The automotive sector will soon have to gear up for upgraded safety and emission norms which could potentially increase the cost of cars manufactured and sold in the country.

"The Union Ministries of Transport and Heavy Industries and Society of India Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) are in the process of finetuning the new norms for safety and emission and we hope these will be introduced within the next three months,” C.V.Raman, Executive Director, Engineering, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, said.

Speaking on the sidelines of a conference to launch the new small car Celerio, he said these norms may result in some increase in overall cost of the cars.

“The new norms will require facilities for testing now coming up at Chennai, Pune, Delhi and Manesar. They are likely to be ready during the year. These will enable car manufacturers to test their cars and conform to the new requirements,” he explained.

The discussion came up after the recent news reports of several small Indian cars Tata Nano, Alto 800, Ford Figo, Hyundai i10 and Volkswagen Polo, failing Global NCAP crash tests.

Raman said, “It was not proper to apply one set of norms and analyse the performance of a car with another. If you are testing a BS III emission norm car, you must apply BS III norms and not that of BS IV.”

On the current system, he said cars in the country are subjected to crash tests at a speed of 48 km per hour and safety of the driver is assessed.

In Europe, they have similar tests where the cars are tested at 56 km per hour. “But as per the Global NCAP norms, these cars were actually subjected to tests at 64 km. This may not reflect the ground reality,” he said.

For instance, cars would require air bags and some structural changes to conform to the new norms.

On buyers’ preferences in India, he said, “India is an extremely cost sensitive market. Top on the list is cost of the car, followed by fuel efficiency, power steering and A/C and convenience features. Safety is put way behind.”

Referring to the current Maruti’s capacity utilisation, Raman said the company is able to use over 65 to 70 per of installed capacity of 15 lakh cars per annum. “We hope to increase the capacity utilisation with the launch of new models,” he said.

In spite of the tough market conditions for the automotive sector, he said the company have had good December and January and hope to continue to do well and register a growth of over 2-3 per cent during the year.

Barely about 5 per cent of the country’s cars sold now account for automatic variants. This percentage is set to go up significantly, he felt.

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