After a highly anticipated two-year wait, Automotive Testing Expo India once again opened its doors at the CTC Complex in Chennai on April 8, 9 and 10, providing the largest forum to date in the country for all industry stakeholders to gather during a period of transformation driven by electrification, autonomy and sustainability. Over 5,000 visitors were in attendance for three days of intensive discussions and inspiration.
The biennial show was opened in an elaborate ceremony involving traditional South Indian lamp lighting. Participants included the organizers, the SAEIndia Automotive Leadership Summit panel members and knowledge partner ARAI: Dr G Nagarajan, president, SAEIndia; CV Raman, member of the executive committee, Maruti Suzuki/past president, SAEIndia; Dr Saurabh Dalela, director, ICAT; Dr N Saravanan, president and chief technology officer, Ashok Leyland; and Dr Reji Mathai, director at ARAI.
Over 200 industry-leading suppliers launched new products and showcased cutting-edge advances in full-vehicle, component and systems development across two exhibition halls, with everything needed to overcome challenges, accelerate development and enhance the quality, reliability, durability and safety of vehicles, their components and systems.
In a first for the event, SAEIndia hosted the inaugural Automotive Leadership Summit, facilitating the exchange of knowledge between industry experts. Speakers from OEMs, academia, suppliers, standards organizations and regulators explored the unique challenges and opportunities for Indian automotive testing, validation and quality engineering, the importance of cross-industry collaboration and the country’s capabilities for the global market.
Testimonials:
Deepak Bingley, head – quality analysis & HVE GQA/3, Skoda Auto Volkswagen India
“Attending Automotive Testing Expo India 2025 was a highly enriching experience. The event showcased state-of-the-art existing and future testing capabilities – from advanced durability, NVH, ADAS assessments to cutting edge environmental simulations and software-driven validation tools. For me, it served as a great learning experience in the dynamic forum and exploration platform where government test agencies (ARAI, NATRAX, GARC..), manufacturers, OEMs and suppliers converged to tackle the growing challenges of the Indian automotive market. Particularly noteworthy was the SAEIndia Automotive Leadership India Summit, which focussed on the deep insights and knowledge across industries (aerospace/drone), offering valuable insights into precision, quality management and system integration that can be adopted for automotive applications. This expo not only highlighted the innovative technical and software solutions “from global to local” but also underscored the importance of collaborative opportunities and resource sharing in driving the future of automotive testing in India. Looking forward to building on these insights and fostering deeper collaborations.”
Ramanathan Srinivasan, managing director, Automotive Test Systems
“We have been part of Automotive Testing Expo India since its inception and have seen the show grow every time. The 2025 expo was bigger in terms of space, exhibitors and customers/visitors. This time, the collaboration with SAEIndia for a leadership summit ensured that leaders from across the automotive industry in India presented and discussed related developments and challenges. This ensured more participation and footfall. We were extremely busy on all three days at our booth and generated enough leads/enquiries to help us grow our business this financial year. The planning and execution by the Automotive Testing Expo team was spot on and we would like to congratulate them and encourage them to carry forward this good work.”
Nilesh Wadhwa, assistant editor, Motoring Trends & Tyre Trends, PIN 365 (Automotive Testing Expo India media partner), and moderator of panel discussions ‘SDV, ADAS, V2X, AI’ and ‘EV test ecosystem: policy, infrastructure, industry’
“Automotive Testing Expo India was a very interesting and insightful event, wherein the leading voices from the automotive industry and ecosystem players offered plenty of key takeaways. SDVs, ADAS, cybersecurity and vehicle safety were hot topics. The speakers were passionate about seeing the Indian automotive industry evolve to become the next powerhouse. It was evident there needs to be more interaction between industry stakeholders and forums such as this. As highlighted by speakers, the automotive industry must start working collectively, especially in the field of ADAS, as India-specific data needs to be validated and optimized for Indian driving conditions to make it more effective.”
Rujuta Jagtap, executive director, SAJ Test Plant
“Since the first Automotive Testing Expo in Hyderabad in 2010, SAJ have been present at every show, whether in Stuttgart, the US, China or South Korea. The audience is the right audience – we’ve got a great response not only in India but also overseas, with customization and EV testing being our most in-demand solutions.”
SAEIndia Automotive Leadership Summit
The high-level summit opened with a keynote address from Damodaran Subramanian, CEO at ChipEdge Technologies/Sarinx/Celton. Subramanian praised SAEIndia’s collaboration with UKi Media & Events, saying “This partnership reflects our shared vision to elevate the level of discussion, knowledge sharing and strategic thinking in automotive testing, validation and quality engineering. As a curtain raiser to this collaboration, we are delighted to host a leadership summit right here at ATE India 2025. It brings together thought leaders, policymakers, technologists and industry veterans on a common platform to explore what lies ahead in the automotive testing domain. At a time when the automotive industry is undergoing transformational changes driven by electrification, autonomy, digitalization and sustainability, testing and validation have become more critical than ever. Through this summit, we aim to spark meaningful conversations around the challenges we face, the opportunities ahead and the innovations that will shape the future of mobility.”
The theme of collaboration pervaded the summit. Ashok Leyland’s Dr Saravanan spoke about how collaboration is key to shifting to more smart testing and virtual validation. ICAT’s Dr Dalela discussed ways to save costs in testing and still be reliable, including simulation, foreseeing future regulations with which OEMs will need to comply and warning that public awareness and acceptance of EV technology is critical to EV success and adoption.
Maruti Suzuki’s CV Raman emphasised the role of industry-academia collaboration due to a multitude of dynamic changes in automotive technologies, and said that 10 years from now, the industry won’t have core workers in mechanical engineering. Raman called on mechanical engineers to partner with universities to find ways to grow together.
Day 2 of the summit opened with a session on ‘Safe and connected vehicles for the future’, with speakers from LDRA Technology (Supporting Partner), IIT Hyderabad, ICAT, Continental and Spark Minda. The session was moderated by Shinto Joseph, director of Southeast Asia and ANZ operations at LDRA.
Joseph said, “The digitization of products and services offers a real opportunity. Road accidents account for a 2.5% GDP loss in India – if someone dies, the family loses everything.” Joseph emphasized the importance of Indian culture in safety, and of enforcing a global safety culture in the organization. For Dr Latha Chembrakalam, vice president and head of Continental’s Technical Center India, environmental conditions in India affect safety, altering product orientation and the value of safety.
The risks of connectivity were also explored. Dr Madhusudan Joshi, automotive cybersecurity specialist and head of technology and business, ICAT, highlighted the need for regulation of software updates. On the topic of ‘Why SDV?’, D Suresh, group CTO, Minda Corporation, said that there are three megatrends: technology, the need for safety, and the move from distributed architecture to a centralized architecture: “The need for safety is increasing so there is a need for better performance computing and knowing how a system should behave in adverse conditions.” LDRA’s Shrikant Satyanarayan explained, “When there is a security breach there is a real impact on safety. Previously there was more focus on functional safety, but with more innovations and connectivity, there is also a risk of cybersecurity attacks such as outside control of ECUs and steering.”
The Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad’s Prof. P Rajalakshmi revealed, “We are developing an end-to-end autonomous driving stack and making it more robust, trained with the Indian dataset. We are working on all weather and light conditions to enhance functional safety as there are more edge cases captured during testing phases. We’ve captured a huge amount of data across India to train the perception stack. We are capturing the diversity of the country in terms of language and vehicle types – body types and signs. We also have a CV2X, hardware and software stack for different connected vehicle applications which enables road safety. This is connected as well as autonomous.” Prof. Rajalakshmi will also be speaking on SDVs at Automotive Testing Expo Europe in Stuttgart, Germany, this May.
The future technologies session was followed by a panel discussion on SDV, ADAS, V2X and AI, with speakers from NATRAX, ARAI, Mahindra & Mahindra and Automotive Test Systems.
NATRAX’s Dr Manish Jaiswal emphasised that the industry needs to understand local nuances (including infrastructure and driving habits) and said, “The sector cannot expect things to change quickly in terms of quality or standardization. Technology needs to adapt to these challenges, i.e. non-standard protocols.”
Concerning the differences in automotive testing and development between India and the rest of the world, Ramanathan Srinivasan, managing director at Automotive Test Systems, revealed, “In the case of emissions, it is easy to copy Europe and replicate in India. However, it is different for ADAS – you cannot test everything on a test track. It requires a lot of testing and validation to homologate a vehicle – conditions change, sensors need to work together with the controller, scenarios added into the simulation, etc. We need 150-200,000 scenarios, but where are they? We need to collaborate with the industry, for instance, to provide the critical data to validate it? We can create scenarios in simulation for validation on a test track, but we are limited to the number of test tracks on India – there are none for ADAS yet, although ARAI is building one in Hyderabad. It is a hardware-to-hardware transition from ICE to EV, but hardware to software is a much bigger transition; we need to drive collaboration for SDVs and an IP strategy as well for different products.”
Other highlights included the session ‘Disruptions in mobility (emerging tech in ground mobility, EV, hydrogen, drones, hyperloop, aerospace), with speakers from Quintrans, the Global Automotive Research Centre, AvironiX and Boeing. The ‘EV test ecosystem: policy, infrastructure, industry’ panel discussion hosted presenters from ARAI, OLA Electric and Ashok Leyland, and was followed by the ‘Design in India for the world’ session, with speakers from the Renault Nissan Technology & Business Centre India, TVS Motor Company and ChipEdge Technologies.
The leadership summit ended with valedictory and closing remarks by SAEIndia president Dr G Nagarajan.
Exhibition
Knowledge Partner ARAI highlighted its expertise in India-specific data collection for ADAS and in developmental validation to test features such as AEBS in passenger cars. Dr Atul R Thakare, ARAI’s senior manager, business development and corporate planning, said, “Mass-scaling can be achieved with an integrated approach and combined process of virtual and experiential verification and validation.”
At the show, HBK unveiled the T100, its new torque measurement sensor for dyno and powertrain testing, offering high accuracy, robust design, unmatched precision, versatile applications, a user-friendly interface, durability and advanced technology. The HBK team also launched a next-generation amplifier platform to meet the demands of Industry 4.0.
Horiba India debuted its next-generation modular emission analysis system, MEXAcube, designed for multi-gas detection in dynamic environments and real-time compliance with global emission standards (Euro 7, BS-VI), while optimizing operational efficiency.
An R&D innovation in e-mobility and conventional powertrain test systems was introduced by Advanced Digital Technology. Its 25,000rpm e-motor dyno testbed, designed to test ultra-high-speed motor performance, comes at a time when “the demand for advanced, precise and reliable testing solutions has never been greater,” according to ADT managing director Max Kim.
Influx was in Chennai to show ReXgen Pro, its customizable datalogging device designed for unmatched security and reliability, enabling users to concentrate on solving problems. Nithin Mohan, global testing and support manager, explained, “It supports UDS and XCP for real-time diagnostics, flash programming and high-speed data acquisition, making it ideal for ECU development, vehicle testing and fleet monitoring remotely without physical connections.”
The future of leak testing was showcased by TASI: the LTC-503. Senior market analyst Aishwarya Dehmukh said, “It combines the highest accuracy with the highest usability at an attractive price. The entire development is based on over 40 years of experience in leak and flow testing, and we are proud to launch such a great product at Automotive Testing Expo India 2025.”
Other highlights included Polytec South-East Asia debuting a new standard of non-contact vibration measurement, the VibroScan QTec, which resolves speckle effects and the resulting effects on return signal strength. Tasking gave live demos of the iC7 family next-gen BlueBox debugger, including virtual ECU support, while MaxEye Technologies unveiled a cellular network emulator and battery cell simulator for electrification, autonomous driving and connected mobility.
The Innovation Showcase covered a range of topics, and included sessions on ‘Revolutionizing battery testing – cyclers versus DC power supplies’ and ‘Virtual simulation for scale in vehicle testing’, with speakers from Technocrat Systems and Measurements, Aarjay International and IPG Automotive, among others.
Across three days, presentations at the ATS Forum focused on issues such as integrated safety and component testing; ADAS and vehicle dynamics, and electric vehicles, among others; with speakers from Race Technology, Kistler, Stahle, IIT Hyderabad, IMC, ATS, AB Dynamics and OxTS.
Automotive Testing Expo India will return to the CTC Complex in Chennai on April 20, 21 and 22, 2027. Meanwhile, look out for an exciting announcement from SAEIndia and Automotive Testing Expo in the coming weeks.