Mahindra Group is geared up to unite with the influential league of firms including Google, Audi, BMW and Tesla that are conducting experiments on driver less cars.
Well, Mahindra Reva, the electric car subsidiary of the automobile manufacturer has presented a proof of concepts for driverless cars in the United Kingdom and Singapore, revealed a senior executive of the company.
Regarding this, the executive claimed that the firm has started with experimenting in their R&D facility located in Bengaluru. After getting the approvals from the corresponding governments, the firm will be testing these driverless cars on road.
He further added that Mahindra Reva will require three to four years of time to develop such a production model after starting trails. The road tests are slated to be carried out in Singapore and United Kingdom. The firm’s research and development facility in the country is involved in developing the software to control the movement of the driver less cars and other aspects. The same is done with the help of the group’s technology brand, Tech Mahindra.
However, a spokesperson from Mahindra did not comment anything on the development. But, he added that Mahindra is the only Indian car manufacturer that has been innovative in all means.
As per Gartner’s Principal Research Analyst, Satish TM, the major challenge involved is building different technologies for various countries as there are varied regulatory environments in each region.
Mahindra Reva has around 2,000 electric cars on the Indian roads so far and each of these vehicles has over 100 sensors attached to them. The company uses these sensors to collect the data from the vehicles for analyzing and diagnosing and also provides a feature to fix many other glitches remotely.
The executive from Mahindra made it clear that the firm has no plans to test driverless cars on the Indian roads. He added that the Indian roads are crowded to test the new concept for now. Their prime focus is on the South East Asian, European and American markets. After witnessing success in these experiments, the firm will start their testing in India.
The project will let selected teams to build driverless car prototypes for decongesting the Indian roads. The first edition be launched in a timeline of two to three years that are split into three phases.
