Leading autotech company CARS24 has teamed up with the Indian Road Safety Campaign (IRSC) to tackle road safety issues on a larger scale. This includes identifying and addressing accident-prone areas using data-driven insights, pushing for tougher enforcement of traffic laws to lower fatalities and interacting with legislators and urban planners to enhance road infrastructure for long-term effects. This is consistent with CARS24's mission statement, ‘Better Drives, Better Lives’, which emphasises that safety is a movement that calls for awareness, action and cooperation rather than merely a duty.

Pothole reporting using the CARS24 app is one of the most recent projects within this partnership. In order to contribute to the development of a centralised database of road hazards, users may now report potholes in real time. While the remaining information will be shared with local authorities to advocate for more extensive road repairs, IRSC will take steps to repair specific potholes after verification. Furthermore, every pothole that is reported will be geotagged, enabling other drivers to drive safely and steer clear of dangerous locations. By bridging the gap between public reporting and government action, this programme seeks to expedite the remediation of dangerous road conditions.

In addition to updating its app with new features and improving drivers' access to important information, CARS24 is getting ready to train all of its Autonauts (staff) as first responders. All 150 staff, including the co-founders, have already received training in emergency response, first aid and CPR as part of the project. In order to ensure that more individuals are ready to intervene when it counts most, this programme will be extended to provide them with life-saving skills.

Gajendra Jangid, Co-Founder, CARS24, said, "We’ve all seen it, a crash that changed a life forever. India has just one percent of the world’s vehicles but 11 percent of global road deaths. That’s not bad luck – it’s a failure of infrastructure, enforcement and awareness. Over 60 percent of these deaths are preventable, yet road accidents remain an everyday tragedy. It’s time to change that. CARS24 is stepping up not just to talk about road safety but to take action. Because no mother should have to fear every time her child steps out. No father should have to worry if their child will make it home. No family should receive a call that changes everything. Fixing potholes, improving accessibility and empowering people with knowledge and tool is our first step towards this mission. Having said that, road safety isn’t just one company’s effort; it’s something we all need to take responsibility for. Because a safe journey home shouldn’t be a privilege – it should be something we build together."

Vikram Chopra, CEO and Co-Founder, CARS24, said, "India loses three percent of its GDP annually due to road crashes. That’s more than what we spend on healthcare and education combined. Beyond the personal tragedy, road accidents impact the entire economy. If fixing roads, enforcing laws and driving responsibly can save lives and boost our nation’s progress, then we have no excuse not to act."

Amar Srivastava, Founder and President, Indian Road Safety Campaign, said, “We started IRSC more than a decade back due to loss of close seniors to a road-crash at IIT Delhi. However, India still loses more than 100,000-plus youth to road-crashes, and solving such a multi-sectoral problem would need the private, government and citizens to come together to solve this while using technology as the backbone for sustainable impact. With our collaboration with CARS24, we aim to save a million lives across the next decade by leveraging technological innovations to change behaviour and nudging citizens at scale to drive responsibly and help reduce crashes by active participation.”

Deepanshu Gupta, Co-Founder and Vice President, Indian Road Safety Campaign, said, “While a lot of people believe road-crashes are accidents, they are not. Each and every accident is preventable by systemic interventions, and with our collaboration with CARS24, we would work across the 4Es of road-safety [engineering, education, emergency care, enforcement] at 10x scale and speed. Road-crashes are today the leading cause of youth deaths. While this is a global menace, India leads the pack and am hopeful that if we all collaborate to act, we would also be the leaders in showing how to solve this sustainably. Time to act is now.”

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South Korean automotive major Hyundai Motor Group has announced a USD 15.5 billion investment plan for India from 2026 through 2032. The strategy was outlined during a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Euisun Chung at the Prime Minister’s Office in New Delhi.

To execute the 7-year plan, Hyundai Motor Group will establish a dedicated investment entity in India to manage capital allocation across manufacturing expansion, research and development, supply chain localisation and mobility services.

The investment includes an allocation of approximately USD 700 million to expand the Group's Indian R&D centre and build a vehicle testing track facility. Manufacturing expansion will focus on scaling production capacity across Hyundai Motor India and Kia India to support domestic sales and export operations.

At present, the Group maintains an annual production capacity exceeding 1.4 million vehicles in India across Hyundai facilities in Chennai (824,000 units) and Pune (170,000 units), alongside Kia India's Anantapur plant (431,000 units).

The investment strategy also targets local component sourcing, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, specialised vehicle financing, end-of-life vehicle recycling and startup investments across India's automotive sector.

"India remains one of Hyundai Motor Group’s most important and strategic markets globally. The past 30 years have been defined by our commitment to India. This investment reaffirms our commitment to India for the next 30 years and beyond. Through this investment, we will create more employment opportunities and work together with our partners and stakeholders to support India’s continued industrial development," said Chung.

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Electric bus operator GreenCell Mobility, a portfolio company of Eversource Capital, has secured an equity investment of INR 3.3 billion from Impact Fund Denmark. The capital will support the deployment of approximately 4,500 electric buses, bringing GreenCell's total fleet to over 5,000 e-buses across 105 cities in India.

The funding supports GreenCell Mobility's expanding order book across intra-city municipal transport and intercity routes. The platform operates as an original equipment manufacturer-agnostic operator, managing bus procurement, depot charging infrastructure and fleet maintenance contracts under public-private partnerships and private operations.

The investment joins existing institutional backers of GreenCell, including the International Finance Corporation, British International Investment and Tata Capital, as the company expands its operational footprint across urban transport corridors in India.

Dhanpal Jhaveri, CEO, Eversource Capital, said, "Electric public mobility is moving from an emerging opportunity to an investable infrastructure asset class in India. GreenCell was created with that conviction – to build the operating capabilities and institutional scale needed to build an enduring business. The equity investment from IFD demonstrates the depth of long-term institutional capital now backing GreenCell Mobility. The next phase is about putting that capital to work with discipline – expanding the business, deepening its capabilities and creating long-term value as India transitions to electric mobility."

Devndra Chawla, MD and CEO, GreenCell Mobility, said, "We welcome IFD as a shareholder and value the continued confidence of Eversource, IFC, BII and Tata Capital as we take GreenCell forward. We have established a strong presence across both intra-city and intercity transportation, with the operating experience to manage increasingly large and complex deployment. Our focus is on executing our order book with rigour, strengthening service delivery and ensuring that the organisation keeps pace with the size and complexity of our operations. This equity investment gives us greater headroom to accelerate our plans while maintaining the standards of reliability, efficiency and customer experience that are fundamental to our business."

Lars Bo Bertram, CEO of Impact Fund Denmark, said, "India is a central market for Impact Fund Denmark. GreenCell is a strong investment opportunity in a rapidly growing market, while also addressing one of India’s major challenges air pollution. Scaling electric transportation can contribute to cleaner cities and accelerate India’s green transition."

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Global vehicle safety assessment organisation Euro NCAP has released its latest testing results under 2026 evaluation protocols, highlighting a growing industry trend toward reintroducing physical buttons and switches for core driving functions. The update comes as European safety testing increasingly penalises reliance on central touchscreen interfaces for primary controls.

Under Euro NCAP's 2026 Safe Driving protocols, primary vehicle controls – including direction indicators, windscreen wipers, hazard lights, horn and emergency call buttons – must be accessible via physical controls rather than buried within touchscreen menus.

In the latest assessments, the Audi Q7 achieved a 90 percent score for driving controls, including a 100 percent rating for primary driving tasks, while the Kia EV2 also received high marks for ergonomic physical switchgear. Both vehicles secured 5-star overall safety ratings.

Conversely, Chinese manufacturer XPENG scored 20 percent for primary driving controls on its X9 MPV due to touchscreen menu dependence, despite obtaining a 5-star overall rating supported by crash avoidance and post-crash safety performance. Comparative testing across 2026 models showed European manufacturers generally scoring higher for physical switchgear, with the BMW iX3 scoring 100 percent and the CUPRA Raval scoring 80 percent, compared to lower scores for the ZEEKR 7GT at 20 percent and the Leapmotor B05 at 0 percent.

Dr. Aled Williams, Programme Director at Euro NCAP, said, "Euro NCAP is continually monitoring market trends, and the move toward placing as many driving controls within a car’s touchscreen system is one that has concerned us just as much as it has annoyed consumers. It is clear in these results that the XPENG adheres to the mantra that everything must be included in the touchscreen, despite overwhelmingly negative feedback by European car buyers. We applaud Audi and Kia for taking a more common-sense approach. Our latest protocols reward the intelligent use of physical buttons and controls, as this can reduce driver distraction, and both Audi’s new Q7 and Kia’s EV2 do an excellent job of keeping safety simple. Other manufacturers, including XPENG, would do well to follow this strategy."

The latest round of evaluations also awarded 5-star safety ratings to the BYD SHARK pickup truck under 2025-adapted protocols and a 4-star rating to the Mazda 2 Hybrid, carried over from the platform's Toyota Yaris architecture.

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Stellantis India, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles and Tata Passenger Electric Mobility have signed a definitive agreement expanding their long-standing partnership into vehicle technology and product architecture collaboration. The agreement builds on a Memorandum of Understanding signed in February 2026.

As per the terms, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles will grant Stellantis access to its vehicle architectures and technology platforms. Stellantis will utilise its engineering resources in India to adapt these architectures for more than 50 international markets. Vehicles developed through the collaboration will be manufactured in India at Fiat India Automobiles, the 50:50 joint venture facility between Tata Motors and Stellantis located in Ranjangaon.

Shailesh Chandra, MD and CEO, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles, said, "Our partnership with Stellantis has grown steadily over more than two decades, built on mutual trust and complementary strengths. This Agreement marks an important next step, extending our relationship into advanced vehicle technology and architecture, reflecting the strength and competitiveness of TMPV’s capabilities in these areas. We are delighted that Stellantis will leverage them to develop products for global markets. Together, we have an exciting opportunity to combine our respective strengths to create compelling vehicles engineered and made in India for customers in India and around the world."

Tianshu Xin, COO for Stellantis Asia-Pacific Region, said, "Partnerships are central to how Stellantis creates value across Asia-Pacific. By combining Tata Motors' strong capabilities in India with Stellantis' global product development and market reach, this Agreement will help us develop competitive vehicles in India and expand our export potential across international markets. It also reinforces India's growing role as a strategic manufacturing and development hub for Stellantis."

The agreement reinforces India's positioning as an engineering, product development and manufacturing export hub for both multi-national automotive corporations, integrating local supply chain scale with international market distribution networks.

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