Asahi India to make lightweight glass products for auto industry

Asahi India Glass Ltd (AIS), jointly promoted by Asahi Glass Co.Ltd. (AGC), Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (MSIL) and B. M Labroo & Associates, is evaluating ways and means to do light weighting and in turn help improve fuel efficiency.

“AIS combines the power of innovation and product quality to passionately create world class products that cater to customer needs across diverse industries, especially automotive. We have more than 75% market share in the Indian passenger car segment and 41% market share in Automotive Replacement Glass”, Vikram Khanna, COO, Consumer Glass, Architectural Institutional Business, CMO, CIO, Asahi India Glass Ltd., told Autocomponents India.

AIS Laminated glass is used for windshields. A layer of plastic (PVB) is sandwiched between two sheets of float glass. This layer bonds the glass together, so that if it breaks on impact, the shards remain stuck together instead of shattering. That’s why laminated glass is used in places where the possibility of injury during accidents is high, like the front windscreen. High-end automobiles also use it for side and back door glass.

Typically automotive industry uses the thickness of 2mm+2mm glass with 0.76 mm PVB, whereas now the market is shifting to 2mm+1.8mm and also 2mm+1.6mm with few OEM’s. For tempered glasses also the market demand is shifting from a typical thickness of 3.2mm to 2.8mm.

“Lightweight Glass is several times lighter than normal glass. The advantage of this glass product is that it reduces the vehicular mass by up to 10% and also helps achieve fuel economy”, he said.

Wide range of glasses

Incorporated in 1984, AIS has grown from a one-customer one-plant setup to being one of the largest integrated glass companies in India, manufacturing a wide range of automotive safety glass, float glass, architectural processed glass and glass products spanning across the entire glass value chain.

AIS has four state-of-theart production facilities at Bawal (Haryana), Roorkee (Uttarakhand), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), and Taloja (Maharashtra); along with three sub-assembliescum-warehouses at Bangalore (Karnataka), Halol (Gujarat), and Pune (Maharashtra). The plants and sub-assembly units are strategically located in close proximity to customers’ manufacturing facilities to provide seamless service and effective delivery.

AIS Auto Glass has the unique distinction of being the only glass company in the country to be awarded the prestigious Deming Application Prize in