Page 29 - MMI _ MayJune2021 (single-pages)

nization to address sustainable
transportation, green mobility,
and road safety.
Please tell us about Society of
Automotive Engineers (SAE)
India and its goals. How do you
plan to align your experience
and expertise with SAE India’s
goals?
SAE India is a professional body
having headquarter at Chennai.
We operate through four sec-
tions – North, West, South and
Bengaluru – to address the needs
of mobility sectors in the re-
gions. The vision of SAE India is:
– To be the most preferred
technical body for knowl-
edge dissemination and skill
development of mobility
professionals, students, and
faculty;
– To be the trusted think-tank
advising policymakers on
mobility-related matters;
– To be a self-sustaining society
with mobility professionals
as members.
SAE, as a professional society, has access and capability of absorb-
a rich pool of resources spread in
small pockets across the coun-
try. My first goal is to bring them skilled human resource. To offer
together and consolidate their
expertise as part of the common
platform. SAE can thus take the
lead in co-developing more of
the new standards, algorithms,
etc. along with its cohort in
the areas of autonomous driving
and e-mobility.
With my strength of handling
challenges, I aim to take SAE to
the new heights of professional
thought leadership in the auto-
motive domain. It is important
to capture the changing ex-
pectations of each of the SAE
members including students,
professional members, facul-
ty, corporate members, etc. and
have our action plan ready.
I also aim at creating more wom-
en SAE leaders. I am proud of my
SAE experience of over 25 years,
www.mmindia.co.in
Source: Rashmi Urdhwareshe
“The Indian Machine Tool industry
is undoubtedly capable of handling
the EV industry’s demand. It is
getting ready is what can be seen
through its expansion plans and
investment patterns. Investments
in tooling, assembly, skills, and ma- other green vehicles shows that
nufacturing capacities are current-
ly being done.”
Rashmi Urdhwareshe
President
Society of Automotive Engineers
India (SAE India)
which has taught me the lessons
of organizational leadership
through leading and volunteer-
ing positions within regional,
state, national, and international
level events. Therefore, I intend
to keep empowering women and
enable them to take up active
and challenging roles within the
SAE community as well as in
their own employments.
You are at a vantage point
where you can gauge the exact
readiness of Indians for green
mobility. Please comment.
Thanks to the early investment
and commitment by the Indian
Auto industry, we do have good
ing technology. Another big as-
set is our strong, committed, and
cost-effective green solutions to
the consumer, we need to now
focus on manufacturing excel-
lence and reap the advantage
of scale. We can soon reach the
critical mass so that more invest- With the
ments could be justified. government
On the demand side, Indian con- policies
sumer is very picky, cost-sen- and other
sitive but also brand loyal. The favorable
market development of EVs and factors, it is
a matter of
consumer is interested in trying a few years
out green vehicles, provided his before we
long-term interests are protect- can declare
ed (in terms of battery life, re- ourselves
placement costs, running costs, as country
charging facilities, etc.) and he committed
gets the value for his money. to meet sus-
Government policies are cur- tainability
rently focused on incentivizing goals in
public transportation to give transporta-
boost to the green technologies tion.
and their development in India.
With these favorable factors,
it is a matter of a few years be-
fore we can declare ourselves
as country which is committed
to meet sustainability goals in
transportation.
Our Automotive industry is
based on the conventional
engines. For the large-
scale adoption of EVs, the
entire ecosystem has to be
transformed. How is SAE India
helping the industry to smoothly
transition this change?
SAE India has a very wide base
of membership. The four strong
pillars of our membership in-
clude Students, Faculty Mem-
bers, Professional Members, and
Industry/Corporates. With the
changing focus of powertrain
development, SAE India was
quick in identifying the upskill-
ing requirements of each of these
stakeholders. We meticulously
planned and executed Profi-
ciency Improvement Programs
on top technology areas such as
Powertrain development, Bat-
tery Management, EV materials
development and many more.
These programs were conduct-
ed in virtual as well as hybrid
mode. National and internation-
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