Source: Financial Express
MANESAR, India – Continental Automotive has been in India for years now and technology in braking systems and hydraulics has evolved since rolling out its first ABS system in 1969. Today Continental is at MK 100 ABS system and also has the more technologically advanced MK C1 platform which will be introduced in India in a few years.
India, like a lot of automotive markets globally, is entering a transition into newer, cleaner, and more intelligent modes of mobility. As India steps into the future of mobility – electric and autonomous – along with the heightened need for enhanced safety in vehicles today, Continental has new technology to tell us about.
To learn more about the brand and its venture into new technology for future mobility, we visited Continental’s Manesar plant and spoke with Krishan Kohli, Business Head – Vehicle Dynamics, Continental, and Thomas Laudes, Managing Director, Continental Automotive Brake Systems India Ltd.
The first crucial part of the day’s agenda was to experience the manufacturing process at the plant with Thomas Laudes who walked us through the ABS assembly line for four- and two-wheelers. About India’s aim to make Electronic Stability Control (ESC) mandatory in the country by 2022-23, Laudes said that Continental hopes that every ABS unit that is being produced today at their plant will be replaced by an ESC unit eventually.
“We already have the capacity to produce ESC units as it’ll be the same assembly lines as that for ABS. We enough production capacity to service the industry for the next five-six years, Laudes said.”
As ABS gets replaced by ESC, “there will more to do on the customers’ (OEM) end than there will be for us as we have the capacity and expertise to roll out ESC units but the OEMs will have to make adjustments like equipping the cars with additional sensors, make software adjustments based on the size and type of the vehicle,” etc.
