23 July, 2020
pManifoldis rolling out a first ever Online Training & Certification Program on model-based development of Electric Vehicles in partnership with Automotive Skills Development Council (ASDC) of India. The first batch of the program titled ‘EV Systems Engineering’will start from 17th of August,2020.
Electric vehicle progress from being a ‘green alternative’ to becoming ‘mainstream transport’ has only now started picking in India, and that is the reason the country stands 15th rank in McKinsey Electric Vehicle Index (EVI) in terms of market adoption, and 7th in terms of Industry Leadership. While the automotive giants of the developed countries churn out model after model of affordable as well as performance electric cars, in India the surge has been in the electric two and three wheeler segments. But many of the these EVs available in Indian market are still heavily relying on imports or engineered outside India.
“What is holding us back in developing indigenous electric vehicles is our traditional approach towards product development”, says Vikrant Vaidya – the senior Partner and Lead of EV Systems Engineering Practice at pManifold. With nearly two decades of experience in vehicle integration for Indian and global automobile OEMs, Mr. Vaidya have been deeply involved in engineering automobilesincluding hybrids and electric cars, and developing virtual models and testing and calibration tools for speeding up design-to-manufacturing.
“While IC engine technology developmenthas always been led by the automobile OEMs for more than a century now, contemporary technologies in electric vehicle sub-systems like motors and batteries are still alien for most of them. So the approach that perhaps worked fine for the IC engine vehicles, suddenly seems lost when they no longer control the technology development of their powertrain.” continues Mr. Vaidya,“What we need now, is a robust systems engineering to select and integrate new outside developed technologies, seamlessly into our EVs. And virtual model-based development is the best tool for the purpose.”
Arindam Lahiri, CEO of the Automotive Skills Development Council of Indiahas been quick to notice this skill gap in the product engineering function of Indian automotive OEMs – be it two-wheeler, three-wheeler, car or bus segments. He recognizes the value of virtual model-based development, which provides a cost-effective, yet robust alternative to the exorbitant vehicle prototypes otherwise required from proof-of-concept studies to final validations. With ASDC’s focus on developing hands-on skills in Indian automotive industry, Mr. Lahiri remarks “It’s the first time that such a course focusing on core systems and sub-systems modelling and simulations using tools like Excel, Scilab and Matlab is offered in EVs. The participants can design their engineering sub-models and integrate them into full-fledged EV model, and run simulation and scenarios to experience performance trade-offs as seen by the end-users – like range, power, speed, acceleration and charging time, and connect these to sub-systems’ design and specs for batteries, motors and power electronics.”.Mr. Lahiri concludes, “With our commitment to making Indian automotive engineering world-class, this partnership with pManifold was inevitable, given their deep EV knowledge. ASDC will support independent assessment and provide certificate that will hold high industry value.”
pManifold is New Energy, e-Mobility & Utilities focused Strategic Research and Consulting company with 10+ years of India and global experience with market development of New Energy Technologies and PPP driven Reform and Business models in e-Mobility, Solar + LVDC, Power Distribution PPPs, Smart Meter-Grid-City, ESCOs, Energy Storage and others. It has developed proprietary Integrated Energy & Transport e-Mobility Model (IETEM©) – a library of EV models; and EVISCity© – a regional EV planning web-based platform and multiple applications to city/state and country level e-Mobility planning and road-mapping. (www.pManifold.com)
Automotive Skills Development Council (ASDC) is the automotive industry focused arm of Skills India initiative by Government of India as well as National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC). It is supported by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), Automotive Component Manufacturers Association (ACMA) and Federation of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA). (www.asdc.org.in)