Continental to manufacture ABS and ESC units in India
As the safety equipments in the automobiles being the first priority in India, components like Anti-lock Brake Systems (ABS) and Electronic Stability Control (ESC) are finding its application in the Indian vehicles. Since these technologies are new to India and has less volumes, most of the companies import those components.
To be more cost competitive in the Indian market, the Chassis and Safety Division of the German component major Continental will start producing ABS and ESC units in India very soon. A new assembly line for ABS and ESC for passenger cars and later ABS for two-wheelers will be created in the existing Continental Automotive Brake Systems plant in Gurgaon, Haryana. The local production start of the Electronic Control Unit (ECU) is planned for the year 2018 in Bangalore. The company targeting the delivery of its first localised ABS/ESC products for India to a leading vehicle manufacturer, by end of 2016.
“The Indian market is one of the world’s largest markets for compact cars and two-wheelers. By producing these systems in the market for the market, we are matching our portfolio to the requirements of our local customers, while keeping our technologies affordable”, said Felix Bietenbeck, Head of Continental’s business unit Vehicle Dynamics. “India tops the list of nations in total number of road fatalities. The widespread use of ABS, airbags and ESC in vehicles can contribute considerably to reducing the number of serious injuries and fatalities on Indian roads”, said Claude d’Gama Rose, Managing Director, Continental Automotive Components India. “With decades of experience in this area, Continental offers a portfolio of high performance, advanced products which can contribute to greater road safety,” he added.
The task of an ABS is to maintain braking stability and steering ability during braking on all types of road surfaces. ABS systems allow for the maximum braking effect without the risk of the wheels locking up. ABS therefore improves the vehicle stability and steerability. Continental’s ABS solution is both modular and scalable and can be customised for various control strategies for both, two- and four-wheelers.
ESC supports the prevention of critical vehicle states. The system constantly evaluates the data from the wheel speed sensors, the steering angle sensor, the yaw rate and lateral acceleration sensor and compares the driver ’s input with the vehicle’s actual behavior. If an unstable state is detected, for instance as the result of a sudden direction change, ESC responds in milliseconds and stabilises the vehicle through wheel-specific brake inter vention and adjustment of the engine torque.
A glance at the statistics shows how important ABS is alone for motorc ycles. I n I ndia, 32,524 lives were lost and over 127,000 people were injured in two-wheeler accidents in 2014. Awareness and enforcement are critical in improving road safety. The recent draft notification from the I ndian Ministr y of Road Transpor t and Highways mandates that two wheelers with engine capacity exceeding 125cc manufactured from April 1, 2017 need to be fitted with anti-lock brak ing systems. All existing two wheelers exceeding 125cc need to be fitted with antilock brak ing systems from April 1, 2018. With this, the first solid steps have been taken towards achieving the goal of “Vision Zero”, the vision of accident-free driving, on I ndian roads.