Indian CV & Road Transport Industry: Now; Next & Beyond

Indian CV & Road Transport Industry: Now; Next & Beyond

October 25, 2021

CVF 2021 – A huge success! Achieves new feat by clocking 2,000+ delegate turnout!

On 21st  and 22nd October 2021, over 2000 delegates and 50+ speakers  from the Commercial Vehicle and Road Transport Industry met virtually to exchange their thoughts on the theme of this year’s CVF i.e. “Indian CV Industry: Now, Next and Beyond!”

5th Edition of Commercial Vehicle Forum (CVF) was organized by Threefold Business Solutions (Threefold) with a focus on bringing together C-level executives and senior delegates across the CV & Road Transport value chain. Since its inception in 2016 CVF has grown manifold and is considered as “NOT TO MISS” event for the Indian CV sector.

This year’s CVF (virtual) comprised of panel discussions, presentations, and masterclass wherein delegates had a chance to listen, ask questions and engage with prominent industry leaders and experts. The event provided a diverse agenda and covered a range of issues from Futuristic view on Industry landscape and product profile (alternative fuels) to the impact of COVID on the supply chains. The programme was spread over 2 days to ensure maximum engagement and as not just an opportunity to listen but to actively engage and participate via Q&A.

Featured speakers included Mr. Diego Graffi – Chairman and MD at Piaggio Vehicles Pvt Ltd, Mr. Tom Flack – President and Chief Purchasing Office at Tata Motors, Mr. Nishant Arya – Vice Chairman and MD at JBM Auto, Mr. Aniruddha Kulkarni – Vice President and Head CV engineering at Tata Motors Ltd, Mr. Sachin Agarwal – Senior Vice President R&D Technology – VE Commercial Vehicles, Mr. Ajay Sharma – Chief Platform Head at M&M ltd, Mr. Shankar R – CEO India Operations at TVS Supply Chain Solutions, Mr. P Kaniappan – Managing Director at WABCO India Limited, Mr. Vinkesh Gulati – Vice President at FADA, Ms. Hetal Gandhi – Director at CRISIL Research and many more.

Subject matter experts from leading global automotive companies also shared their views on topics such as managing end to end supply chain visibility, innovative solutions for fuel storage, COVID risk management in public transport, Road to Autonomous, Connected, Electric and Wheel nut solution for commercial vehicles.

Speakers in the Keynote Panel Discussion shared that implementing BSVI regulation in CV has been quite challenging due to the elevated level of technological involvement and the corresponding costs. Further, providing tools and training mechanics to service the BSVI vehicles has also been a disruption. Going forward if time can be given by the government to absorb the changes that impact OEMs, then that shall be helpful as investments required are huge. Volumes of CV as it is were falling even pre-pandemic. Inputs costs are going up and coordination challenges also exist, however demand has been healthy in the recent past which shows the resilience of the sector. If costs can be managed going forward then the YoY growth shall be stable given no further major regulatory changes happen.

Panelists of the session on Alternative Fuels shared that while introducing BSVI, multiple technological changes have been made which has increased complexity for the customer. And with Europe now starting to migrate to Euro 7, if that is also to be implemented then it will make things even more complex. Thus, alternative fuel must be investigated and CNG looks to be the most promising one so far. Each fuel implementation brings its own set of challenges – infrastructure, price, energy security etc. CNG is gradually emerging as a preferred solution for now, given its acceptance. There are other set of fuel technologies which are also evolving such as fuel cell, LNG etc however, technologies are also dependent on the variety of vehicle and CNG fits most of the vehicles.

During the supply chain masterclass, Mr. Tom Flack shared that during COVID there was no precedent of shutting down an industry and there were many firsts in that situation. To manage the situation, Tata Motors started with pushing as much cash as possible in the supply chain to ensure that supplier could use it for their survival. Further, tactical teams were built to work through labour issues, financial interjections, and safety protocols. Tata Motors addressed changes by assessing whether the changes are structural or momentary and then tried to manage those by developing deeper global understanding of each challenge.

On day two, Keynote Panelists in the Indian Bus and Passenger Transport Industry panel discussion shared that as of now the bus industry is not in a very great shape. However, with opening of the economy and the underlining fact that bus is the cheapest mode of travel, the sector is expected to revive very soon as there is no other cheaper travel alternative available to the average person. On the technology side since most of the tenders for procurement of new buses are issued by state transport companies, electric busses shall see significant offtake given government thrust on energy security.

Prominent comment from most of the delegates, speakers and partners was “This was a very successful and positive forum providing much needed impetus and energy to the post pandemic recovery of the sector” The Forum was supported by Partners including Here Technologies, BAPL Rototech, ZF WABCO, Total Energies, NBC Bearings, Omnicomm, ESI, Norgren, Light Metrics, Atlas Copco, Belmaks and DNA Consult Advisory.

The Forum ended on a positive note and Threefold also announced its next virtual event called 2W, 3W & EV Forum (TWF) to be organised on 9th & 10th December 2021. Companies and individuals interested in joining the growing list of disruptors, visionaries and innovators at TWF can contact the Event Director – Rohit Dewan, on +91 9811152332 or email ro***@*******ld.in for details. More information regarding the event can also be found on our event website at https://twforum.in/