Nexteer Automotive India, part of around $4 billion revenues steering and driveline business firm owned by Pacific Century Motors, announced setting up software centre in Bengaluru.
Interacting with DH, Nexteer Automotive India Operations Director R Balakrishan said the software centre is the fourth R&D centre of the company across the globe.
"The India software centre will be the first software centre focusing on the critical aspect of steer-by-wire (SbW) and electric power steering systems (EPS) that are key gateway technologies for advanced safety functions and automated driving," he said.
Besides manufacturing electric and hydraulic power steering systems, steering columns and driveline systems, Nexteer Automotive also supplies advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving technologies for original equipment manufacturers (OEM).
The US-headquartered company has already established global technical centre in Saginaw, US. It has two regional technical centre in Tychy, Poland and Suzhou, China.
"The mandate of the India software centre is to focus on the software side along with other rechnical centres which are doing both engineering and software. In the initial phase we hire 50 and it will reach up to 200 by the end of the year," said Balakrishnan.
The company announced an investment of $2.5 million for the software centre and acquired 8000 square feet office space which will be increased to 25,000 soon.
The India operations Director said software component is very important for safety critical steering component for automotive OEM customers. "Besides enhancing performance, our software development will help in enhancing the autonomous driving levels," he said.
Balakrishnan also said the company is setting up EPS manufacturing plant with a total investment of around $12 million at Chennai. The company's mother plant is located in Bengaluru and has two other plants located in Gurugram and Pune.
The company has 24 manufacturing plants and its clients BMW, Fiat Chrysler, Ford, GM, PSA Group, Toyota and Volkswagen, as well as automakers in India and China.