@Normal_2610: India pays a premium for the p...
@Normal_2610
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Mar 24, 2026
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India pays a premium for the privilege of not learning anything :)
Every Indian car Tata, Mahindra, Maruti, all of them has a tiny computer inside called an ECU (Engine Control Unit)
This computer decides everything - how much fuel to inject, when to shift gears, how brakes work, how the battery behaves in an EV. Think of it as the car's brain.
India makes zero of these brains for passenger cars. All of them come from foreign companies, mainly Bosch (Germany).
If you don't control the brain, you don't really control the car. Indian OEMs can't even add a simple valve to their own engine without asking Bosch for permission.
They can't change a single line of code. They are selling cars with someone else engineering inside.
This isn't really about technology being too hard. It's a business model designed to keep you dependent.
Three layers lock you in :)
First, every new car programme needs Bosch to do setup work (Rs 10-30 crore). Second, you pay full price for software Bosch already developed for Volkswagen so Bosch gets paid twice for the same work.
Third and this is the killer every time you want to change anything in the software, even something tiny, it costs around $500,000. So Indian OEMs simply stop trying to innovate. They accept whatever Bosch gives them.
The calibration trap means tuning the car's brain for Indian conditions, how should the engine behave in Ladakh cold vs Chennai heat?
Indian OEMs outsource even this to AVL in Austria. AVL reuses work they already did for European cars, charges India full price, and transfers zero knowledge. So Indian engineers never even learn how their own cars work from the inside.
What Korea did is Hyundai faced the exact same situation in 1987. They set up Kefico as a joint venture with Bosch, learned everything from the inside, and by 2015 they owned the full technology themselves.
The sequence was simple - first learn calibration (tuning) → then write your own software → then build your own hardware. It's a ladder. India never climbed the first rung.
Why India didn't do this - It's not a talent problem Indian engineers design ECUs at Bosch offices worldwide.
It's a combination of things like Indian OEMs won't fund Indian startups to develop alternatives. They demand that Indian suppliers first prove themselves in Europe before getting a chance at home (while European companies protect their own).
Middle managers won't risk their careers backing a Pune startup when they can safely pick Bosch. India spends 0.64% of GDP on R&D vs Korea's 4.9%. Private sector funds only 36% of India's R&D, in Korea it's 79%.
SEDEMAC - the one exception - One Indian company (IIT Bombay founders, Pune-based) actually makes ECUs for two-wheelers and generators. They have real IP, real patents, millions of units shipped.
But even they couldn't break into passenger cars. Tata Motors is literally in the same city and doesn't use them.
EVs are simpler to control than petrol/diesel engines. This should have been India's fresh start. Instead, Mahindra's new EV platform has Bosch (Germany), Valeo (France), BYD (China), Mobileye (Israel), Continental (Germany) - zero Indian ECUs.
The dependency just migrated from ICE to EV with different foreign names.
swarajyamag.com/technology/the…
Every Indian car Tata, Mahindra, Maruti, all of them has a tiny computer inside called an ECU (Engine Control Unit)
This computer decides everything - how much fuel to inject, when to shift gears, how brakes work, how the battery behaves in an EV. Think of it as the car's brain.
India makes zero of these brains for passenger cars. All of them come from foreign companies, mainly Bosch (Germany).
If you don't control the brain, you don't really control the car. Indian OEMs can't even add a simple valve to their own engine without asking Bosch for permission.
They can't change a single line of code. They are selling cars with someone else engineering inside.
This isn't really about technology being too hard. It's a business model designed to keep you dependent.
Three layers lock you in :)
First, every new car programme needs Bosch to do setup work (Rs 10-30 crore). Second, you pay full price for software Bosch already developed for Volkswagen so Bosch gets paid twice for the same work.
Third and this is the killer every time you want to change anything in the software, even something tiny, it costs around $500,000. So Indian OEMs simply stop trying to innovate. They accept whatever Bosch gives them.
The calibration trap means tuning the car's brain for Indian conditions, how should the engine behave in Ladakh cold vs Chennai heat?
Indian OEMs outsource even this to AVL in Austria. AVL reuses work they already did for European cars, charges India full price, and transfers zero knowledge. So Indian engineers never even learn how their own cars work from the inside.
What Korea did is Hyundai faced the exact same situation in 1987. They set up Kefico as a joint venture with Bosch, learned everything from the inside, and by 2015 they owned the full technology themselves.
The sequence was simple - first learn calibration (tuning) → then write your own software → then build your own hardware. It's a ladder. India never climbed the first rung.
Why India didn't do this - It's not a talent problem Indian engineers design ECUs at Bosch offices worldwide.
It's a combination of things like Indian OEMs won't fund Indian startups to develop alternatives. They demand that Indian suppliers first prove themselves in Europe before getting a chance at home (while European companies protect their own).
Middle managers won't risk their careers backing a Pune startup when they can safely pick Bosch. India spends 0.64% of GDP on R&D vs Korea's 4.9%. Private sector funds only 36% of India's R&D, in Korea it's 79%.
SEDEMAC - the one exception - One Indian company (IIT Bombay founders, Pune-based) actually makes ECUs for two-wheelers and generators. They have real IP, real patents, millions of units shipped.
But even they couldn't break into passenger cars. Tata Motors is literally in the same city and doesn't use them.
EVs are simpler to control than petrol/diesel engines. This should have been India's fresh start. Instead, Mahindra's new EV platform has Bosch (Germany), Valeo (France), BYD (China), Mobileye (Israel), Continental (Germany) - zero Indian ECUs.
The dependency just migrated from ICE to EV with different foreign names.
swarajyamag.com/technology/the…
2
I am more optimistic about India now than ever before. New age companies have the hunger, and the risks they are taking are 10x bigger than established players.
The problem earlier was that many things were missing. But a lot has changed in the last 10 years. The people who come out of India's top universities, they no longer want to work for corporates the way their seniors did. They want to go build things. They are doing startups.
Most importantly, now there is VC money, university support, and soon government incentives will come into deep R&D as well. The environment is far more flexible than before.
Deeptech is not easy at all. Ather took years to build their battery cell technology, that is genuinely hard work. ideaForge was on the brink of bankruptcy. Their tech is cutting edge by global standards, but they struggled for 5+ years without orders. Surviving that is not easy.
Corporates simply do not have the gut, the hunger, or the ability to do this kind of work. They are not incapable because they lack talent, they are just too disciplined, too structured.
Whatever it is that makes a deeptech founder push through a decade of near-failure, corporates simply do not have it.
Then look at who is putting skin in the game on the investor side - Zerodha has their Deeptech fund, Info Edge started their deeptech initiative a few years ago. These are people who genuinely understand how hard deeptech is, how long it takes, and how often it fails. That matters.
And few others VC who just funding Deeptech in India :)
There is real demand in India for cutting edge, made-in-India R&D. I believe in the next decade, we will all see this play out.
And in comparison, VC money in India is still 10 to 20x less than the US. When India's economy grows from 7 trillion to 10 trillion, a lot of things will change periodically, systematically, across the board.
One last thing, I read all the comments on my tweets and I feel people hope too much, and then they get disappointed when they understand the second-order story.
But India is a country that disappoints both optimists and pessimists. That is just its nature.
The problem earlier was that many things were missing. But a lot has changed in the last 10 years. The people who come out of India's top universities, they no longer want to work for corporates the way their seniors did. They want to go build things. They are doing startups.
Most importantly, now there is VC money, university support, and soon government incentives will come into deep R&D as well. The environment is far more flexible than before.
Deeptech is not easy at all. Ather took years to build their battery cell technology, that is genuinely hard work. ideaForge was on the brink of bankruptcy. Their tech is cutting edge by global standards, but they struggled for 5+ years without orders. Surviving that is not easy.
Corporates simply do not have the gut, the hunger, or the ability to do this kind of work. They are not incapable because they lack talent, they are just too disciplined, too structured.
Whatever it is that makes a deeptech founder push through a decade of near-failure, corporates simply do not have it.
Then look at who is putting skin in the game on the investor side - Zerodha has their Deeptech fund, Info Edge started their deeptech initiative a few years ago. These are people who genuinely understand how hard deeptech is, how long it takes, and how often it fails. That matters.
And few others VC who just funding Deeptech in India :)
There is real demand in India for cutting edge, made-in-India R&D. I believe in the next decade, we will all see this play out.
And in comparison, VC money in India is still 10 to 20x less than the US. When India's economy grows from 7 trillion to 10 trillion, a lot of things will change periodically, systematically, across the board.
One last thing, I read all the comments on my tweets and I feel people hope too much, and then they get disappointed when they understand the second-order story.
But India is a country that disappoints both optimists and pessimists. That is just its nature.
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3
A big thank you to the person behind this beautiful article. Even I did not know about the ECU and TAN protocol until I read this. Genuinely learned something new.
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