Carmakers see a surge in demand for airbags
The use of airbags by carmakers has jumped up to three times in the past three years, thanks to the rising trend of offering multiple airbags in several new models. Most of these airbags, now, are sourced locally as manufacturing has picked up in the last couple of years.
Almost every new car, which has been launched in last couple of years, has at least one airbag (driver side) while some also have passenger airbags. According to a government regulation, all new car models launched from October 2017 must be equipped with airbags to meet crash test norms. Existing models need to meet these norms from October 2019. Dual airbag in a car roughly costs ~15,000.
Maruti Suzuki, the country’s biggest car maker, has seen almost a three-fold jump in consumption of airbags during the three year period ended March. The company did not share the total units consumed last year.
“We have suppliers such as Autoliv, Toyoda Gosai and Ashimori who have already set up local manufacturing capacities as per our future requirements. The current localisation level is around 60 per cent. Only components such as inflator and fabric are imported,” said a company spokesperson.
Toyota, the first company to make airbag a standard fitment across models in India, has seen its demand double in the last two years to 615,000 units. Except the knee airbags, the Japanese carmaker sources all the airbags locally. The company said airbag prices were stable and it expects to achieve further price competitiveness in the future with enhanced localisation process across the supply chain.
“At Toyota, the airbag utilisation has
grown with its standardisation across models and variants. In 2015, we were the first in the industry to standardise dual airbags across all models. In 2016, with the new Innova Crysta, frontal knee airbags were standardised across its variants. The new Fortuner launched in the same year, marked standardisation of seven airbags across variants. In the recently launched Yaris, we have standardised seven airbags across variants, a first in the segment,” said N Raja, deputy managing director at Toyota Kirloskar Motor.
Honda Cars said it consumed 355,000
units of airbags in 2017-18 against 260,000 units in 2014-15. The company said sourcing was not a challenge with rising consumption as sufficient number of suppliers was now operational in the country. Dual airbags became a standard offering across the Honda cars line up since April 2017.
With rising awareness, consumers are opting to buy vehicles that have multiple airbags. Raja said customer preferences had been evolving, and his company witnessing a greater demand for products with advanced safety features at an affordable price.
Korean carmaker Hyundai said sales contribution of airbag fitted cars in total sales volume stood at 90 per cent in 201718, more than double compared to 40 per cent in 2014-15. “Our suppliers are geared up for the rise demand and localisation level of airbag is quite high,” said a spokesperson.
According to Minda Industries, which makes airbags with Japan’s Toyoda Gosei, a total of three million airbags were supplied to various carmakers last year by airbag producers. “We supplied 756,000 airbags last year and got revenue of ~3.5 billion. Prices have remained consistent since key components are imported. In future, when the key component suppliers set up facilities here, the prices may come down by 5-7 per cent,” said N K Minda, chairman and managing director.
Even as airbags are becoming a common feature in cars, manufacturers claim the first point of safety in a vehicle is the use of seatbelt by all the occupants. “That will reduce injuries predominantly. Airbags can only improve it by 10 per cent. If you don’t wear a seat belt and the vehicle has an airbag, the consequences are going to be more fatal,” said an industry executive.