Chipmaker Qualcomm India has been conducting on-road trials of connected vehicle platforms “over the past two years”, Uday Dodla, senior director for automotive business development at the company, told Mint.
“We expect to see an initial rollout of generative AI-powered cars from Indian automakers by the end of the next calendar year. We’re building our platforms to natively support 5G connectivity, while locally-running small language models (SLMs) are integrated into the platform to support interfaces in natural language. This would be a key feature offering of mainstream cars, even in sub- ₹10 lakh cars from Indian brands,” he said.
Two senior industry consultants who advise multiple car firms on go-to-market strategies said Tata Motors and Mahindra are expected to roll out new connected car platforms with integrated generative AI voice interfaces by the end of 2025.
Velusamy R., president of automotive technology and product development at Mahindra & Mahindra, confirmed the development. “The new range of electric SUVs, to be launched in early 2025, will have an advanced Qualcomm chip and will enable connected mobility platforms,” he said.
Tata Motors is yet to respond to Mint’s query. Maruti Suzuki, India’s largest carmaker by volume, is also yet to respond on whether it is also looking to adopt a connected vehicle platform within the next four years.
Also Read: India’s generative AI startups look beyond ChatGPT-like models
Software-defined vehicles
The features in question could define value addition in mainstream cars in the immediate future, Dodla said. “We’re now in the era of software-defined vehicles (SDVs), which means that software features will add to the user experience with voice assistance, real-time mechanical health dashboards in cars, and more. This is giving us a vast market of automotive companies in India to cater to, and the electrification of cars will give us a further fillip in terms of the net revenue base that we can target,” he added.
To be sure, SDVs refer to cars where software platforms become the focal point of engineering for cars. In comparison with the current crop of infotainment displays that largely rely on phone mirroring, future connected car platforms will run on their own with integrated connectivity, and include a generative AI-based conversational interface to enable natural voice-based usage in cars.
The shift from traditional infotainment experiences to more advanced features gives chipmakers such as Qualcomm, as well as Taiwanese rival MediaTek, a big opportunity to tap into.
Data from Centre-backed investment agency, Invest India, pegged the country as the world’s third-largest automotive market, with nearly 28.5 million units sold in India in FY24. The market generates a net value of nearly $150 billion each year as of the past fiscal, with the value of the market expected to grow at “high single-digit” until at least the end of the decade, analysts told Mint.
“The evolution of this feature is natural, and there is no reason to think even for a second that a car made by an Indian auto brand will be behind the tech adoption cycle of any global counterpart,” said Som Kapoor, partner at consultancy firm EY India. “This will give chipmakers a huge market to cater to in terms of revenue generation, since the evolution of adoption of technologies in cars will be as natural as the trickle-down of premium software experiences from luxury cars to mass-market ones.”
Also Read: Our AI system can make your car driverless, says Imagry CEO
Budget-friendly?
Kapoor further added that connected cars platforms are not an exorbitant addition for automakers, which is why it makes reasonable sense for them to adopt the platforms that the likes of Qualcomm and MediaTek have on offer.
Qualcomm’s Dodla added that the cost of integration of cutting-edge chips and connected cars in mass-market vehicles is “less than $100 per four-wheeler, and even lesser for two-wheelers.”
Kumar Rakesh, India analyst for IT and automobiles at brokerage firm BNP Paribas, added that early adoption of connected cars platforms will give auto brands a head-start, which will not be expensive to follow through.
“From a supply perspective, more auto companies are looking to build SDV platforms, where cars’ features can be updated through the life cycle of the vehicle ownership. This is leading to a shift from hardware-defined features to software-driven features, and generative AI with natural language processing within connected car platforms collectively could start becoming a key differentiator for cars,” he said.
Adding to Kapoor’s smartphone analogy, Rakesh said the introduction of connected car platforms would take place in line with how assisted driving has rolled out.
“Initially, ADAS (advanced driver assistance systems)’ level-2 features were rolled out in premium cars priced at around ₹30 lakh. Now, ADAS level-2 features have already proliferated to sub- ₹20 lakh cars—and are being found in cars in the ₹10-20 lakh price bracket. The feature set is evolving, too—soon, we’ll see ADAS-2+ features in mainstream cars. We think connected cars with generative AI features would also roll out similarly,” he added.
Also Read: Smartphone makers are betting big on AI features. Consumers see them as gimmicks
