Until recently, if an Indian automotive company wanted to launch a new vehicle, it had two options: One, and this was the practice for most of the industry's sixty-year history in India, it would turn to its technology partner, and pick up a near-obsolete model dirt cheap. Two, this was rare, it would go to a design centre-say, in Turin, Italy-and pay a hefty sum. This is what Tata Engineering did when it forayed into passenger cars with its Indica in 1999.

Circa 2002, a third option is being tried out by a bunch of manufacturers: that of designing and developing vehicles on their own. And guess what? They are more than just succeeding. Mahindra & Mahindra's sports utility vehicle (SUV), Scorpio, was conceived and developed by its own engineers in Nasik. Tata Engineering's mid-sized sedan, code-named Magna and due for launch around 2004, has been designed in-house. Two-wheeler company TVS Motor turned to its own product development team for the launch of Victor. Bajaj Auto, despite a partnership with Kawasaki, decided to build its dandy motorbike Pulsar without much external help. And so have Royal Enfield (Thunderbird) and LML (Freedom).

So, just what is making it possible for these companies to home-grow vehicles? "Advancement in design technology and the global exposure of Indian auto executives," says Deepak Singhania, Managing Director, LML. The biggest driver is, of course, competition. In passenger cars, the benchmark is truly global, given that there is only one serious domestic player. In motorcycles, snazzy styling is at once a differentiator and brand-booster. Says Pradyumna Vyas, Chairman (Industry Programmes and Projects), National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad: "Some companies have acquired design capabilities and are leveraging that to differentiate themselves."

There is one big advantage of doing so: Cost. Tata Engineering's Magna will end up costing between Rs 300 crore and Rs 600 crore-a similar effort at, say, General Motors, would have cost upwards of $1 billion (Rs 4,900 crore). LML spent a bare Rs 75 crore on Freedom. Had the company outsourced design, the bill would have been twice that. Says Pawan Goenka, Executive VP (Product Development), M&M: "The cost of skilled manpower in India is just a fifth compared to the rest of the world." Some experts believe that sometime soon in the future, India could become a back-office for automotive design work. But that's another story.

M&M's Scorpio: The Art of Possible
Despite incredible odds, a young team managed to build India's first SUV.

Behind the Scorpio: (L to R) P.K. Goenka, M.V. Raman, Vikas Bawa

Quite simply, Mahindra and Mahindra's Scorpio is India's biggest design story of the new millennium. Not since Tata Engineering's Indica has any vehicle generated so much excitement and chest-thumping as the snazzy Scorpio. And justifiably so. For, the Scorpio almost didn't happen. When the idea of a smart, new-age sports utility vehicle was first proposed by m&m's President (Automotive Division), Alan Durante, in 1996, the company's Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Anand Mahindra, merely asked his team to explore the feasibility of the project. And when it did seem possible to build an SUV in India, Mahindra stepped in with a caveat: there would be no big money to spend on it.

With some initial help from Ford Motor Co., M&M's Integrated Design and Manufacturing (IDAM) team in Kandivali, Mumbai, set about finding ways of building a world-class vehicle at local costs. Making a clean break from its past, M&M first decided to ask its customers what kind of an SUV they wanted. The rationale was simple. Says Pawan Goenka, Vice President (Product Development), who spent 15 years with General Motors in Detroit before joining M&M: "It's easier to make what you can sell than to sell what you have made"-a phrase that became the team's mantra. The product development team-just 120-big and with a ridiculously low average age of 27-was broken up into 19 cross-functional teams, each with a leader responsible for decision-making and targets. Concurrent engineering allowed the design team to work with vendors closely and, therefore, significantly cut down on development time and rework. Although a lot of the design work was spread over the US, Korea, Japan, France, Austria and the UK, Kandivali was the nerve centre. At every stage of the development, customer feedback would be incorporated to ensure the vehicle came as close as possible to market expectations. That's one reason why despite importing the petrol engine from Renault (the diesel version was developed inhouse with help from AVL, Austria) and the suspension system from Samlip (Korea), M&M was able to price the Scorpio between Rs 5.5 lakh and Rs 6.35 lakh. Emboldened by the success of its Rs 600-crore project, M&M has started work on new vehicles, besides new variants of the Scorpio. That may just turn around the company's declining fortunes in the automotive industry.

-Abir Pal

Bajaj's Pulsar: Easy Rider
It's got all the bells and whistles, and more.

Pulsar pride: R.L. Ravichandran, VP, Bajaj Auto

Pulsar was conceived in late 1997 by Rahul Bajaj, chairman, Bajaj Auto, and a team of top executives. The idea was to offer a performance motorcycle for bike enthusiasts, and one that would be relevant at least for the next five years of its launch. Much like LML, the company was experiencing a shift away from scooters and fuel-guzzling two-stroke bikes. And it had to quickly build up a portfolio of motorcycles that were not only fuel-efficient, but would be able to rope in young consumers through contemporary styles. By the end of 1998, the company made a mid-course correction and decided to offer the bike in two engine capacities-150cc and 180cc. Designing started immediately and barely 17 months later, the pilot bike was ready. What made the performance even more impressive was the fact that the Pulsar had completely new engines and chassis, a five-speed gear box, counterbalance, disc brakes, and a starter motor. The entire design and development, says R.L. Ravichandran, Vice President (Business Development & Marketing), was handled by Bajaj Auto's 19-member engineering team, with a relatively low average age of 29. The company won't reveal the exact amount of money spent on developing Pulsar, but says it has invested Rs 100 crore in R&D costs over the last three years. BT understands that half of that may have gone into Pulsar alone. Since its launch in November 2001, Pulsar has sold 50,000 units.

-Abir Pal

LMl's Freedom: Turnaround Vehicle
The company's future rides on it.

Freedom to ride: Deepak Singhania, MD, LML

Imagine having to reinvent your company. LML's Deepak Singhania doesn't have to. He's done it already. Until three years ago, LML was a scooter manufacturer with Piaggio as a partner. Then, Piaggio left and the two-wheeler market moved away from scooters to motorcycles. Over the past 24 months, Singhania has fought back with new motorcycle models, with help from Daelim of Korea and 150 engineers at LML's new design centre in Kanpur. LML's first two motorcycle offerings, Adreno and Energy, were part-imported from Daelim and niche products. But LML needed a bike that would generate volumes. As an answer, Freedom was conceived in May last year. The 110-cc Freedom also draws its platform from Daelim, but LML has given it a new look and feel. Ergo, the computer designing, prototype machining and testing was carried out by LML's team.

An all-aluminium, low-friction engine and internal oil transfer system today form Freedom's USP. "Freedom is a bike that conforms to global standards of engineering and design," says Singhania. Freedom promises a fuel consumption of 85 km per litre. Since its launch in Uttar Pradesh on July 15, 2002, Freedom has sold over 2,500 units. By the end of the year, that figure is likely to hit 80,000. If it does, Singhania may be back in the two-wheeler game with a bang.

TVS' Victor: One Of Its Kind
How the company learnt to go solo.

Victor(ious): (L to R) Y.R. Babu, R. Sundaresan, Vinay H. Chandrakanth, R. Venkatesan

When TVS motor's design team started work on its 110-cc Victor in the end of 1999, it faced two major challenges. One, it had been asked to design a motorbike with the power of a two-stroke, but the fuel efficiency of a four-stroke engine. Two, that seemingly impossible task had to be done without any help from its soon-to-part Japanese ally, Suzuki Motor Company. Fortunately, though, it wasn't the first big design project for the team. A year earlier it had launched TVS Spectra-a 150-cc scooter, built from scratch at its Mysore plant. To marry power with fuel efficiency, the team came up with an innovative solution: a microprocessor-controlled power mode ignition system, which automatically makes the choice between power and fuel efficiency.

When tests revealed that the rider tended to develop a backache after long hauls, the TVS engineers came up a three-level suspension system, besides optimising the seat foam characteristics. The interesting point, however, is that the design team actually shaved costs by some 20 per cent, while making these improvements. The company estimates that its product development cost of Rs 70 crore would have been double had the design been outsourced to a foreign firm.

The fact that TVS Victor has just 1 per cent import content allows the company to price it at Rs 41,200 (ex-showroom, Chennai) and take on Bajaj Caliber and Hero Honda Splendour.

-Nitya Varadarajan

Tata Magna: D Major
Luxury car making is a different ballgame.

Tata Magna: Indica's sequel?

And that's probably why eight years after it was first dreamed up, the Magna has just about reached style freeze. And it may be next year before the car hits the market. The Magna will be Tata Engineering's second passenger car, but will be vastly different from Indica. Reason: the two segments behave very differently. While the small car buyer is tolerant of minor glitches, the luxury car buyer is a finish fanatic. When Tata Engineering began work on Indica, there was just one brief from group Chairman, Ratan Tata. It had to be a big car at the price of a small car. And since it was the auto major's first foray into passenger cars, it turned to I.D.E.A. of Italy for design help. Three and a half years, Rs 1,700 crore in investment and some glitches later, the Indica in its new v2 avatar has proved a runaway success. The Magna, however, has been developed in house. Most of the work has been done at the Pune plant, using cad systems and Mac-based styling tools from Alias of the UK. The car was to debut in the middle of 2002, but a rash of launches-Hyundai Sonata, Honda Accord, Ford Mondeo and the Mercedes c-180-sent it back to the drawing board. The Magna will have one huge advantage over its rivals. Since its development cost is expected to be between Rs 300 crore and Rs 600 crore, Tata Engineering will be able to price it competitively and break even faster on small volumes. Now, it's just a question of getting the quality equation right.

-Abir Pal

Reva: The Unconventional
The car may actually be ahead of its time.

Eco-friendly duckling: Chetan (L) & Sudarshan Maini with the Reva

You'll probably never get into a Reva, let alone own one. But you have to hand it to Chetan Maini, Managing Director of Reva Electric Car Company. He was the first carmaker in India to think, way back in 1994, of a battery-operated people's car. In July last year, he actually put it on the road. The car hasn't found too many takers (just 270 Revas have been sold), but consider the design challenges. For one, the car had to be cheap enough to attract two-wheeler owners. It also had to think around the problem of recharging stations. That meant a lot of out-of-the-box thinking like the energy management technology that allows the car to run 80 kms on a nine-hour charge, or the 'space-frame' aerodynamics.

The initial work on Reva was done by Amerigon in the US. After the prototype was made, the project was shifted to India, where the rest of design, production engineering and testing were done in RECC's Bangalore facilities. Since Maini wanted his small car to be internationally relevant, A.T. Kearney was roped in to spec out the product. Still, despite a price of Rs 2.54 lakh, Reva hasn't been able to overcome consumer prejudices. A great idea, but for another time.

-Venkatesha Babu

Enfield's Thunderbird
Two wheels on a shoestring.

Well-packed thunder: Siddhartha Lal, CEO, Royal Enfield

The month Siddhartha Lal took over royal enfield as the chief executive, he ordered work on a powerful bike with retro looks, but with an electronic ignition and a five-speed gear box. Since the company operates in a miniscule market and has annual sales of just 25,000 units, the design team had to make do with a shockingly small budget of Rs 1 crore. To pull off the near-impossible feat, the product team came up with an innovative solution: vendors were asked to do the product design for the component they were supplying.

For example, Chennai-based Iris Development Engineering Limited designed the sheet metal body panels for Thunderbird; plastic parts were taken care of by Central Institute of Plastic Engineering and Technology in Chennai, and the instrument cluster was designed by the Coimbatore-based supplier, Pricol. To lower product cost, Royal Enfield decided to pull in components like the ignition system and the gearbox from its existing models.

Using 3d visualisation and engineering software, which allows rapid prototyping, the company's engineers at the Tirruvottiyur studio crunched design time to just seven months. Although the Thunderbird isn't a completely new platform and borrows from one-year-old Bullet Electra, its body frame, engine, gearbox, and the retro looks are completely new. It also sports an improved 350-cc engine. Lal reckons that the bike, launched in Bangalore past April, would have cost Rs 5 crore in a design studio abroad. Moral of the story: If you are a niche player, innovate like hell.