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My piece at Swarajya on who actually owns the brains behind India's Automotive industry. This is blowing up, and I am learning from the responses as well! Keep 'em coming. @amargov @astrokaran

A big thank you to the person behind this beautiful article. Even I did not know about the ECU and TAN protocol until I read this. Genuinely learned something new. Source: x.com/mchellap/statu…

Thank you 🙏 Tbh I am pleasantly surprised at the interest so many people have shown in a long form technical article in this area. All credit to Swarajya for giving it a platform. And to folks like you who have enthusiastically promoted it... It shows we all want the same things for India 🙌

India pays a premium for the privilege of not learning anything :) Every Indian car Tata, Mahindra, Maruti, all of them has a tiny computer inside called an ECU (Engine Control Unit) This computer decides everything - how much fuel to inject, when to shift gears, how brakes work, how the battery behaves in an EV. Think of it as the car's brain. India makes zero of these brains for passenger cars. All of them come from foreign companies, mainly Bosch (Germany). If you don't control the brain, you don't really control the car. Indian OEMs can't even add a simple valve to their own engine without asking Bosch for permission. They can't change a single line of code. They are selling cars with someone else engineering inside. This isn't really about technology being too hard. It's a business model designed to keep you dependent. Three layers lock you in :) First, every new car programme needs Bosch to do setup work (Rs 10-30 crore). Second, you pay full price for software Bosch already developed for Volkswagen so Bosch gets paid twice for the same work. Third and this is the killer every time you want to change anything in the software, even something tiny, it costs around $500,000. So Indian OEMs simply stop trying to innovate. They accept whatever Bosch gives them. The calibration trap means tuning the car's brain for Indian conditions, how should the engine behave in Ladakh cold vs Chennai heat? Indian OEMs outsource even this to AVL in Austria. AVL reuses work they already did for European cars, charges India full price, and transfers zero knowledge. So Indian engineers never even learn how their own cars work from the inside. What Korea did is Hyundai faced the exact same situation in 1987. They set up Kefico as a joint venture with Bosch, learned everything from the inside, and by 2015 they owned the full technology themselves. The sequence was simple - first learn calibration (tuning) → then write your own software → then build your own hardware. It's a ladder. India never climbed the first rung. Why India didn't do this - It's not a talent problem Indian engineers design ECUs at Bosch offices worldwide. It's a combination of things like Indian OEMs won't fund Indian startups to develop alternatives. They demand that Indian suppliers first prove themselves in Europe before getting a chance at home (while European companies protect their own). Middle managers won't risk their careers backing a Pune startup when they can safely pick Bosch. India spends 0.64% of GDP on R&D vs Korea's 4.9%. Private sector funds only 36% of India's R&D, in Korea it's 79%. SEDEMAC - the one exception - One Indian company (IIT Bombay founders, Pune-based) actually makes ECUs for two-wheelers and generators. They have real IP, real patents, millions of units shipped. But even they couldn't break into passenger cars. Tata Motors is literally in the same city and doesn't use them. EVs are simpler to control than petrol/diesel engines. This should have been India's fresh start. Instead, Mahindra's new EV platform has Bosch (Germany), Valeo (France), BYD (China), Mobileye (Israel), Continental (Germany) - zero Indian ECUs. The dependency just migrated from ICE to EV with different foreign names. swarajyamag.com/technology/the…

Thanks for the kind comments. As for the way forward, naturally there are multiple 'right paths'. Since we are talking of the fastest path: 1. I would borrow from the Germans' own thought (from AUTOSAR): "cooperate on standards compete on implementation." 2. Only one act of coercion is required: apply anti trust (as the article briefly argues) and ensure bundling is broken. When you put these two together and work out the details, the path emerges. However it would require government will, OEM cooperation and intrepid startups getting VC support. Now that's a tall ask.

Excellent thread 👏 This is one of the most important (and under-discussed) structural weaknesses in Indian manufacturing. The 'Bosch monoculture' isn’t just about one supplier it’s a complete surrender of the “brain” of the car. Tata, Mahindra, Maruti every major OEM is selling vehicles where they literally cannot change a single line of code or add a simple valve without German permission and a $500k bill. Even in EVs (supposed to be our clean-slate moment), Mahindra’s INGLO platform has six foreign ECUs and zero Indian-designed ones. SEDEMAC remains the only real Indian success story in ECUs (and only for 2-wheelers & gensets). The Korea comparison is brutal but accurate Hyundai went from total Bosch/Mitsubishi dependence in 1987 to full sovereignty by 2015 by climbing the ladder: calibration → software → hardware. We have the talent (Indian engineers are literally designing these ECUs for Bosch globally). What we lack is the 'ambition and capital allocation'. 0.64% GDP on R&D vs Korea’s 4.9% tells the real story. The EV transition was our chance to break the cycle. Instead we just changed the foreign names. Full story link is gold every policymaker and auto CEO should read it. What’s the fastest realistic path forward? 1. Mandating local ECU co-development on new platforms (PLI-style) 2. More JVs with knowledge-transfer clauses 3. Or something bolder like a national automotive electronics mission? Would love Swarajya’s or the community’s take.

My piece at Swarajya on who actually owns the brains behind India's Automotive industry. This is blowing up, and I am learning from the responses as well! Keep 'em coming. @amargov @astrokaran

@bidesh_desh @amargov @astrokaran Thank you 🙏

@mchellap @amargov @astrokaran You earned a follow for that data driven article that promotes true independence for India.

@cvkrishnan @SwarajyaMag Something about customer mentality getting different outcomes than collab mentality 😎 We should chat about this sometime.

@mchellap @SwarajyaMag It subtly plays in investor/company minds in first principles basis even if one may remove the TRL labels. Companies and investors see how far is s tech from commercialisation

In follow up to the excellent piece in @SwarajyaMag on the ECU ecosystem in India by @mchellap , here’s the good news. IIT Madras, is establishing the Advanced Automotive Translational Research Centre (AATRC) focusing exactly on these technologies at a Chennai Knowledge City.

Mysore Sandal!

@cvkrishnan @SwarajyaMag Yes the whole TRL thing needs to go.

@mchellap @SwarajyaMag The valley of death between TRL-4 to TRL-6

@iwinfairly @amargov @astrokaran FOC all the way 🙌 Connected- drop in a message any time

@mchellap @amargov @astrokaran 😊🙏🏻

@vkbdev Thanks 🙏

Well researched article. Also because the author is an entrepreneur himself, he also has given actionable suggestions.

We might need a detailed look into our industry-academia collaboration very soon.

2023 team was the very definition of an 'in form' team. Having already beaten the other finalist as well by 6 wickets. Perhaps the biggest sporting upset of the the year. 1987 team was in form too but had technically lost once before in the tournament (albeit narrowly). 2003 was a hammering. Twice by the same team.

@mchellap @amargov @astrokaran I have worked with some of these companies in a different (but technological) domain for the past two decades: unreasonable demands, frustrating conversations. So, that's why I liked the write-up, because it is something that I can hugely relate to. Hopefully, things change. /

@mchellap @amargov @astrokaran A really good piece. I saw another tweet related to it recently. Definitely worth a read. !

@ColVenkat @SwarajyaMag Thanks 🙏

@SwarajyaMag is one of the best as on today in India. Contributors are very erudite & well informed.

@ZohoCares @Zoho Thank you so much. If you help us out here, we will move more of our needs here as well as siteground (our current provider) has stopped India services and proved unreliable.

@mchellap @Zoho Thanks for bringing this to us. Could you please DM your registered email address and domain information? I’ll request our team to get in touch with you as soon as possible. -RC

@Zoho @ZohoCares trying to move my domain to you but not getting much help with the service. The transfer should have been automatic but hasnt seemed to happen. Can someone get in touch?

Another case of reliance on a foreign provider causing issues! I have had hosting services and domain from @SiteGround since 2016. They stopped service in India all of a sudden but I am paid up till 2031. I have missed their emails about this but now that I am aware, want a simple refund as THEY DO NOT PROVIDE SERVICE IN INDIA. They refused. Seems highly unethical and fraud to me. Let's hope Zoho comes through and let this be a lesson to work with Indian vendors when you can.

Yes @PiyushGoyal 's comments were ill informed.

@Normal_2610 x.com/i/status/20361…