New Delhi:
Stellantis, the global auto major formed through a mega merger between Fiat-Chrysler and PSA Peugeot at the beginning of this year, wants to grow in the increasingly disruptive car industry. In this process it doesn’t want to be seen just as a car company but as a “mobility tech company”, as its global CEO Carlos Tavares said earlier this month.The company is targeting an incremental income of about Euro 20 billion from its software-driven vehicles globally. Stellantis is targeting 34 million monetisable connected cars by 2030, with a majority of all new vehicles to be fully over-the-air updatable by 2024. Which means all of its cars are expected to have a high level of advanced connected vehicle technologies.
“By 2024, we’ll have 100% of our components and features over-the-air uptabale,” says Mamatha Chamarthi, head of software business and product management, Stellantis. During this period, the company plans to have a parc of 12 million connected cars, with 6 million over-the-air updates. With software being largely the technology base for these plans, India becomes critical for the company. Not so much as a market but as an engineering base.
Stellantis has three technology centres in India – one each in Chennai, Pune, and Hyderabad. The Hyderabad unit is particularly critical for software-intensive projects with autonomous driving and connected vehicle technologies. “In Hyderabad, the focus is on artificial intelligence and software engineering,” Chamarthi said.
As a car is getting increasingly defined by its software, the “huge density of technology talent” and the large presence of tech companies in Hyderabad could be of great advantage to Stellantis. The centre was set up by Fiat Chrysler last year. Chamarthi is not new to leveraging the Indian engineering talent pool. For the global Tier 1 ZF, the previous organisation Chamarthi worked for, she had set up a world technical centre in 2017. It has grown to have a workforce of 3,000 engineers.
At Stellantis Chamarthi plans to double the number of engineers in the Hyderabad tech centre very shortly and hire another 4,500 software engineers across Stellantis’ technology hubsMamatha Chamarthi
At Stellantis Chamarthi plans to double the number of engineers in the Hyderabad tech centre very shortly and hire another 4,500 software engineers across Stellantis’ technology hubs. The figure excludes the engineers at Stellantis’ partners BMW (for L1 to L3 autonomous driving tech in cars) and Waymo (for L4 and L5 autonomous driving tech in LCVs).Stellantis has also struck a joint venture deal with Foxconn for a technology platform. “In due course, as we unfold our strategy, we will be announcing more partnerships,” Chamarthi said. Some of them could be announced at CES 2022, scheduled to be held in Las Vegas, USA, from January 3.
Engineers in Stellantis’ India tech centres will also work on three new AI technology platforms – STLA Brain, STLA Smart Cockpit and STLA Autodrive that the company plans to launch by 2024. These will also enable four EV platforms – STLA Small, STLA Medium, STLA Large, and STLA Frame, of the company.Stellantis has lined up a combined investment of USD 30 billion in EVs and software. The car maker looks at the first 5 years of a connected car’s monetisable period, thanks to the various kinds of data generated by it.
By 2030, the Group plans to have 34 million monetisable connected cars. That would be a little over 5 times of its 2020 sales figure. Services and subscriptions, features on demand, Data as a Service and fleet services, vehicle pricing and resale value, conquest cross selling and service retention are being targeted as the major connected vehicle technology powered revenue generating channels.
Software technology generates around Euro 380 million in revenue for the company. Stellantis is betting on software to magnify the brand experience and ‘hyper personalise’ features for the customer. To be rolled out across its 14 brands, the connected vehicle and other software-led features target to contribute Euro 20 billion by 2030 with ‘tech company margins’.
While engineering graduates get screened and hired, Stellantis is also looking at partnerships with universities across India and the rest of the world to attract talent to help it realise the vision to “become a sustainable mobility tech company”. By then India may or may not be a major market for the Stellantis-owned car brands, but the country could definitely be a major engineering base developing technologies for the millions of cars to be sold worldwide.
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