Promising beginning

ACI Awards 2017. It is a dream come true for the little over three-year old Auto components India (ACI), your media partner. Though the gap between the announcement for nominations and the closing date for the jury meet was very narrow, we are extremely delighted to say that the beginning was very promising. There were a good number of highly competitive and competent nominations for all the proposed categories of competition.

It was a hard task for the jury to pick one each from among them. They have chosen whom they thought edged out though none were off the mark or below the top line. In certain categories the difference between the winners and runners up was in decimals. I congratulate all the participants, and the winners in a very special way, and look forward for the next edition with more nominations and more enthusiastic participation. Flip to page number 15 for the list of nominations and winners of ACI Awards 2017.

The global automotive industry has featured polarised developments in the last couple of years. The OEMs are looking for new growth opportunities through improving the vehicle performance. This trend stems from the multi-faceted regulations, and technological developments particularly in the field of automotive electronics.

Now the buzz word in the industry is `connected’, and how electronics interacts with each system. With specialisation, the component manufacturers play more important roles than OEMs in introducing innovation in some segments. Meanwhile, penetration of cross-industry technology into the automotive industry has further intensified cross-sector competition. With the dual impact of industry-internal changes and the external economic environment, market concentration has been accelerated.

Within the automotive electronics segment, ADAS, connected vehicles and electronic energy are considered as groundbreaking technologies, promising significant growth and exerting profound impact on the automotive industry chain. We spoke to several stakeholders of the industry and everyone unanimously agreed that automotive electronics is continuously evolving. The upcoming regulatory changes will bring electronics in vehicles to the fore. In the Cover Story we have featured some of the key players in the revolutionary evolution of automotive electronics that makes vehicles greener, safer, and connected.