Hisashi Takeuchi, managing director and chief executive officer of Maruti Suzuki (MSIL), said on Wednesday that the conditions for deeper localisation for India’s automobile industry have never been more favourable. He added that as the global supply chains are being reconfigured, cost is no longer the only consideration, and that reliability and continuity have become equally important.
“This creates a significant opportunity for India to emerge as a trusted manufacturing and supply chain hub,” said Takeuchi in his speech at the 66th annual session of the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA).
Takeuchi stated that strong policy support from the Government in the form of initiatives such as the PLI scheme and the India Semiconductor Mission is already creating opportunities to build capabilities in critical areas and reduce strategic dependencies.
“The third favourable factor for deep localisation is scale. GST 2.0 has accelerated the auto industry growth in the domestic market. At the same time, India's export potential continues to strengthen. These are together creating an opportunity of scale and justify the need to invest in localisation, including advanced technologies that were previously considered difficult to manufacture competitively in India,” said Takeuchi.
He also urged the need to manufacture world-class components as localisation alone is not enough. “To truly strengthen the industry's competitiveness, products made in India must be able to compete with the best in the world… Unless our Tier-2 and Tier-3 suppliers are capable, we can’t produce world-class quality. Hence, we need to extend our focus beyond our companies to include our immediate suppliers, as well as Tier-2 and Tier-3 suppliers,” said Takeuchi.
Cautioning the industry about the growing cyber attacks, he said that as the industry embraces greater digitalisation, cybersecurity becomes equally important.
“Having said that, even hackers are evolving their technology and becoming more sophisticated with each passing day. So, we have to ensure that we stay one step ahead of them. At the same time, we cannot rule out the chances of a cyber incident. In view of this, we must be prepared with a robust contingency plan that enables us to resume business operations within the shortest possible time and minimize any potential disruption,” said Takeuchi.
Tata Group-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) faced one of the most brutal cyber attacks of recent times in September 2025. The disruption forced the luxury carmaker to suspend its production for weeks, resulting in a direct loss of hundreds of millions of pounds alongside over £1.9 billion in wider economic damages across approximately 5,000 affected supply-chain businesses.