Innovation and sustainability in design took centerstage at the 19th Styling & Design Conclave 2025 organised by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM). The event saw participation from designers and professionals from organisation such as Hero MotoCorp, Maruti Suzuki India, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India, Stratasys and Autodesk among others.

G Sathiyaseelan, Chairman, SIAM Styling and Design Group and Vice-President, Ashok Leyland, shared his views on empathetic, inspirational and innovative approach towards technology and design,

Anuj Prasad, CEO and Founder, Desmania, expressed confidence in the bright future for automotive designers.

The event saw speakers acknowledging that automotive styling has become an old word, while design and sustainability are the modern buzzwords that indicate the direction in which the automotive sector must head.

“The level of design happening in India holds tremendous potential. We are at the threshold of a new era in design and innovation. Today, international organisations are looking to India for designs that cater to both local and global markets. Automotive design will help build the nation in a responsible manner,” said Prasad.

Prashant Banerjee, Executive Director, SIAM stated that “Indian automotive designs today are as good as Italian designs.”

Samarth Gupta, Senior Technical Specialist & Mobility Lead APAC, Autodesk, said, “Everyone wants to own a vehicle because it is an expression of independence. The urban population landscape is changing due to climate change. New developments in geopolitics and the evolution of consumers’ trends and preferences are impacting the mobility landscape. We will need to evolve our auto design thinking amidst disruptions.”

Teofilo Plaza Garcia, Industrial Studio Head, Hero MotoCorp, said “Motorsports-based designs can be used for road-based vehicles, as indicated through Hero XPulse 210. These vehicles will no longer be as expensive as before.”

Rahul Pandita, Regional Head, Stratasys, stated that 3D block printing is a useful technique that has helped companies like McLaren bring racing designs to life quickly. “As design processes such as 3D block printing decrease the time taken, companies can quickly decipher whether a design is feasible or not,” said Pandita.

Dinesh Raman, Director, Transportation Design, KISKA Shanghai, opined that “As the years go by, greater use of AI will be made for design, thereby freeing up time for creative pursuits by automotive designers.”

VS Deka, Group Manager, Royal Enfield, said, “AI innovation is coming into our lives and we need to adopt the evolving technology. AI can be customised through training and then be scaled up as per requirements.”

Ferdinand Klauser, Global Partner & MD, Asia, KISKA Shanghai said, “India has a lot of potential in bringing about the transformation in mobility designing landscape.”

He also mentioned that though the future is unpredictable, it is possible to plan for it by understanding that consumer needs are transforming faster than the market.

Professor Kaustuv Sengupta of NIFT Chennai, stated, “Colour represents around 20 percent of the design language. Every 300 miles in our country, you see a new colour context. Human beings see a small spectrum of colours. Colours affect us psychologically. We see what we want to see.”

Rajesh Gogu, Vice-President (Design), Maruti Suzuki India, revealed that the company decided to create a completely new design for the fourth generation of the Dzire. The design became a success despite a 55 percent market share for SUVs.

“The trends on the road are changing, as demand for sedans have reduced while that of SUVs have grown. Designing can reinvent declining segments or products to make them popular again. Innovation is not just about technology, it is also about shape, form, aerodynamics, performance and more. We can design our vehicles that can reduce the carbon footprint offering better fuel efficiency and value to customers,” averred Gogu.

While describing the role of AI in automotive designing, Harikrishnan AK, Delivery Manager, TCS Design, said, “AI image generators can be used for inspiration, exploration and for happy accidents but there are challenges of confidentiality and originality. We need to harness the full potential of AI by customisation and fine-tuning.”

Speaking about designing in the commercial vehicle segment, Pravin Gaikwad, Head of CV Design, Tata Motors, said, “We have adopted multi-powertrain strategy. It is possible for the form to get you the trust of the customer. Form is actually helping us to define many ideas. We are leveraging tech intelligence like telematics to design something very unique.”

He shared an insight on how Tata Motors was using space intelligence as a new design direction for making Tata Prima trucks and a new space-saving concept called Tata YU.

The SIAM Styling and Design Conclave also presented automotive design students of MIT (Maharashtra Institute of Technology), ADYPU (Ajeenkya DY Patil University) and NID (National Institute of Design) an opportunity to present their design prototypes. Vedant Barve, a student at MIT, won the first prize for an electric cruiser scooter concept.

“When we began, India had only two design schools. Today, there are over 1,500 design schools producing a strong talent pool for automotive design. We need to be transformative and move toward defining automotive design that is human-centric and sustainable,” added Prasad of Desmania.

“To make India into a global design hub, change that helps India use aspects of its culture while competing at a global level is needed in the academic curriculum,” concluded Sumer Singh, Associate Professor, IIT Delhi.

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Bosch and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. have announced an expansion of their strategic collaboration to include Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). This move builds upon their established partnership in cockpit solutions and aims to address the automotive industry's requirement for scalable technology in automated and connected vehicles.

Bosch stated it has now delivered more than 10 million vehicle computers globally using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Cockpit Platforms.

The extended agreement includes new production programmes for ADAS that utilise Bosch’s vehicle computer architecture powered by the Snapdragon Ride platform. A central component of this collaboration is the development of platforms that combine cockpit and ADAS functions on a single system-on-chip (SoC).

This integration is designed to align with the strategic shift towards software-defined vehicles, allowing automakers to reduce architectural complexity, power consumption, and manufacturing costs.

The Bosch ADAS integration platform is designed as a modular computer capable of fusing data from multiple sensors to create a 360-degree environment model. This system supports a range of functions from entry-level assistance, such as lane keeping and distance regulation, to higher-level automated driving. The joint engineering efforts have already secured several design wins in the East Asian market, with the first vehicles featuring these consolidated platforms expected to enter the market in 2028.

By migrating from numerous individual control units to a small number of high-performance computers, the partnership provides a path toward centralised vehicle architectures.

These solutions are engineered to meet safety standards up to ASIL-D while enabling consumer features such as hands-free driving and intelligent automated parking across various vehicle segments.

Christoph Hartung, Member of the Bosch Mobility business sector board, said, “By combining leading-edge compute technology with our system integration expertise – hardware, software, and safety – we enable automakers to meet the rising demand for personalised, safe and comfortable driving experiences. The growing success of our collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies underlines a central value Bosch brings to the industry: we provide the robust, high-performance computing platforms that form the backbone of today’s software-defined vehicle.”

Nakul Duggal, EVP and Group GM, Automotive, Industrial and Embedded IoT, and Robotics, Qualcomm Technologies, said, “Our collaboration with Bosch spans the full spectrum of vehicle compute – from high‑performance cockpit systems to scalable automated driving solutions and emerging centralised vehicle architectures – all powered by Snapdragon Digital Chassis automotive platforms. ADAS is where performance and safety must scale in the real world. By expanding our work with Bosch into production-ready ADAS platforms, we’re helping automakers bring advanced driver assistance across vehicle lines more efficiently, with a clear path to centralised compute.”

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Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Wipro 3D to create a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for additive manufacturing. The facility will be located at the Toyota Technical Training Institute (TTTI) in Bidadi, Bengaluru. The partnership is intended to facilitate skill development and the integration of 3D printing technologies into production environments.

The centre will provide students with exposure to industrial applications of additive manufacturing, including rapid prototyping and the development of production aids. Wipro 3D will provide technical expertise and training modules covering internships, apprenticeships and workshops. The curriculum will also incorporate digital manufacturing and resource optimisation as part of an emphasis on Industry 4.0 technologies.

By leveraging these manufacturing capabilities, the initiative aims to reduce lead times and improve assembly line efficiency. The TTTI, which focuses on vocational education in trades such as mechatronics and welding, doubled its intake to 2,400 students in 2023. This collaboration aligns with the institution's objective to build technical talent for the automotive sector.

G Shankara, Chief Strategy Officer, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, said, "Our Human Resource Development philosophy at TKM follows core principles of Toyota such as, Continue the Quest for Improvement, Show Respect for People, under which we thrive hard to develop individuals in the Latest Technology of the New Age Era of automotive field. We are also committed to nurturing skilled talent and strengthening India’s manufacturing ecosystem. This collaboration will play an imperative role in nurturing future-ready talent, while contributing meaningfully to the Government’s Skill India Mission.”

Yathiraj Kasal, Business Head and General Manager, Wipro 3D, added, “This association reflects our commitment to strengthening India’s manufacturing ecosystem through capability building and innovation, while creating industry-relevant learning experiences.”

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TomTom has introduced Unified Speed Restrictions, a new service providing updated speed limit data for global regulatory compliance and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). The service is designed to help vehicle manufacturers exceed the minimum requirements of Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) regulations.

The service integrates multiple static and live data sources into a single output. By combining various inputs, the system provides continuous updates to vehicle software to ensure speed limit identification remains accurate across different driving environments.

Data sources utilised include:

• Unsigned speed limits: Based on regional road classifications.
• Roadside sign recognition: Camera-based detection of physical signs.
• Probe data: Aggregated information from connected vehicles.
• Variable speed limits: Real-time data from electronic overhead gantries.

Beyond safety compliance, the service supports automated driving functions by providing data for predictive path planning and smoother vehicle manoeuvres.

The solution is available as an API or pre-integrated within the TomTom ADAS SDK. The SDK is modular, allowing manufacturers and Tier 1 suppliers to incorporate the data into existing software stacks without vendor lock-in. This architecture is intended to reduce development costs and accelerate the deployment of predictive assistance features.

Manuela Locarno Ajayi, SVP of Product Engineering, TomTom, said, “Accurate and trusted speed information is foundational to road safety, regulatory compliance and automated driving at scale. With Unified Speed Restrictions, we are equipping automakers with a globally consistent, future‑ready foundation that reduces complexity, enabling higher levels of automation.”

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Detroit Engineered Products (DEP) has introduced DEP AIWorks, an engineering platform designed to integrate machine learning with physics-based simulation. The launch follows the conclusion of a five-city industry conclave held across Bengaluru, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai.

DEP AIWorks is built as a physics-agnostic and tool-agnostic environment, allowing it to function across various datasets and engineering domains. The platform combines neural networks and physics-informed models with computer-aided engineering (CAE) solvers to provide predictive and generative capabilities within the product development lifecycle.

Core features of the platform include modular architecture, operational speed and ecosystem compatibility.

The platform is intended for use in the automotive, aerospace, energy, manufacturing and telecommunications sectors. It supports various stages of development, from early design exploration to manufacturing validation. By utilising data-driven learning alongside physics-based validation, the system aims to improve engineering productivity and accelerate decision-making cycles.

Radha Krishnan, President & Founder, DEP, said, “DEP AIWorks reflects the next step in how engineering organisations will adopt AI, not as a standalone tool, but as an integrated part of the product development lifecycle. By combining decades of simulation expertise with advances in AI, we are enabling teams to move faster while maintaining engineering rigor and reliability.”

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