Intelligent cars spell big business for Tata Elxsi.

As global auto majors go for more intelligent cars, the benefits are being reaped back in India by Tata Elxsi, which has the automobile sector as a key vertical in its product design services domain. The research and development of a number of path-breaking features that mark new vehicles are being developed at the company’s development centres, which presently have staff strength of roughly 700. Typically, the high-end cars of the world have as many as 70 little computers, or electronic control units (ECUs), which also mean that about 60% of the cost of automobiles are contributed by the electronics that they feature. This is in contrast to 10 ECUs in high end Indian cars at present.

The company is engaged in some of the cutting-edge work including bending the beam of vehicle lights while taking curves, night vision, elevating or dipping the beam as required and adaptive front lighting system (AFLS) which enabled drivers to prevent light from vehicles coming in the opposite direction blinding them temporarily. Some of the product designs undergoing development included censors that would automatically measure body temperature and pulse of the driver and accordingly adjust air-conditioning in the vehicle, adjust air-conditioning levels according to personal comfort levels of each passenger, and airbags that would open to the levels required for passengers of different weights.

Tata Elxsi has seven global development centers in the country, besides one centre in Japan. The centre here is targeted to have strength of 2,000 software professionals within the next two years. The increasing electronics constituent in automobiles means more business for Tata Elxsi, which has a strong presence in the automobile vertical.