To date, India’s uneven and notoriously congested roads have made the development of autonomous vehicles (AVs) outside of niche use cases arguably more difficult than other territories. Subsequently, domestic industry efforts have generally focused instead on less ambitious advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), the market for which is expected to be worth US$4.2bn in 2027—up from US$1.5bn in 2021, according to Mordor Intelligence.
However, India could prove to be a particularly valuable testbed for pioneering artificial intelligence (AI) based safety tech. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways estimates that 18 people die on the country’s roads every hour. It also contains four of Asia’s most congested cities—Bengaluru, Pune, New Delhi, and Mumbai. A 2019 report from Boston Consulting Group estimated that traffic jams cost the national economy US$22bn annually in lost productivity. But is ADAS enough to resolve these issues?
Gagandeep Reehal, Chief Executive and Co-founder of Bengaluru-based AV start-up Minus Zero, believes full AVs are essential for improving road safety. Committed to overcoming the deficiencies that make conventional vehicle AI inappropriate for India’s roads, his company made history in June 2023 when it demoed the nation’s first AV concept vehicle, the zPod.
