India, which houses four percent of the world’s water resources and 18 percent of the world’s population, ranks 13th among the 17 worst affected countries in Aqueduct 3.0 Country Rankings 2019 lists. It is the world’s biggest extractor of groundwater — more than China and the US combined — accounting for almost a quarter of the total extracted globally. Between 2000 and 2017 its groundwater depletion increased by as much as 23 percent. Generally, the annual per capita water availability of less than 1,700 cubic meters is considered a water-stressed condition. If this number is below 1,000 cubic meters, it is regarded as a water scarcity condition. Its highly alarming that for India, the utilisable per capita water availability which stood at 938 cubic meters in 2010 is expected to drop to 814 cubic meters by 2025, says National Institute of Hydrology.

About 200,000 Indians die every year due to inadequate access to safe water and 600 million face high to extreme water stress, as reported by NITI Aayog. The groundwater resources that account for 40 percent of India’s water supply are being depleted at unsustainable rates directing the need to adopt efficient water management measures in both residential and industrial areas. Nearly 163 million of India’s population of 1.3 billion lack access to clean water close to home, according to a report by WaterAid. Given this scenario, it is incumbent upon both the Government and the citizens, to find ways to address and avert the crisis.

Excessive Industrial water consumption

The world’s population is expected to expand by another 40-50% over the next 50 years (Source: World Water Council). Currently, India’s industrial sector is already the second-highest consumer of water, and their current usage in India is about 13 percent of the total freshwater withdrawal in the country. This water demand for industrial uses and energy production is expected to grow at a rate of 4.2 percent per year, rising from 67 billion cubic metres in 1999 to 228 billion cubic metres by 2025. Here, it’s critical to note that industrial water demand is not negligible in India and that it is bound to grow in the coming years. Experts opine that poor water pricing is one of the main reasons for its inefficient use by the industrial sector. It’s essential that for a water-stressed country like India, the efficiency of utilisation in all the industrial uses of water should be optimised and an awareness of water as a scarce resource should be fostered. The key to the problem lies in the effective management of the water through the deployment of tech advanced smart meters that allow real-time insights to be drawn and acted upon immediately.

Automotive Industry

Efficient water management is becoming an increasingly important issue in sustainable vehicle manufacturing. The automotive industry is one of the major consumers of water, and according to some estimates, over 40,000 gallons of water is used in the process of manufacturing a car. In the automobile assembly lines, water is used throughout a variety of process and production stages where vehicles are treated, washed, rinsed and painted.

The Indian automobile industry is expected to reach $300 Bn by 2026 at a CAGR of 15 percent. It is vital to deploy advanced smart water management technologies to track and reduce process water usage. The technology roadmap for energy reduction in automotive manufacturing should have smart water meter deployment as a key point. These would help manufacturers understand the water usage pattern and make informed decisions to use it more judiciously, thereby reducing the overall energy usage and cost factor.

Since water is used in nearly every stage of the auto manufacturing process in the automotive industry, concerns must be raised around how these plants can reduce global water use significantly. The most conducive solution would be deploying smart water metering solutions due to a number of benefits that they have to offer:

Power bank of Information/data log- Valuable statistical data and information about the water volume and flow, temperature, pressure information is stored and available in the integrated data loggers. These non-invasive temperature readings and optional integrated pressure measurement help network operators to maintain water quality and balance pressure levels in their pipe network.

Lifetime Maintenance-free with long-term battery life- With more than ten years of battery life and in-built static technologies, some static water meters solutions are maintenance-free over its entire operational lifetime.

Improved and better performance- Consumption patterns of commercial and industrial customers often involve fluctuations between low flow rates and continuously high flow rates. These smart meters are designed to be extra sensitive both at high and low flow rates so the alarm can be raised quickly and efficiently in case of pipe burst/ leakage/reverse flow/tampering attempts.

Interestingly, many of the large automobile players have understood the risk of undue water usage. Water management has started to become a top priority in manufacturing plants for them. The OEMs and associated automotive suppliers globally are constantly introducing and expanding methods to conserve water.

Government Initiatives

Governments and regulatory bodies are looking to encourage smarter systems, greener environmental standards and demanding cost targets to restrict the impact on their citizens. Smart water networks, energy reduction targets, a growing population and the effects of climate change are driving new business models and regulatory demands for the Government nowadays. Remote data collection and exchange is growing exponentially and long-established methods and practices are being relooked at – which is offering immense opportunities to utilities to drive operational efficiency. Smart water management, as outlined above, helps the Government, cities & water utilities to improve their infrastructure and enhance the quality of customer service/engagement.

Smart water meter application in industries will help water companies improve customer experience by providing instant, accurate information on everything from billing to queries about service, as and when it’s needed. Providing more data would mean enabling more contact with the customer, fostering a closer relationship.

Road Ahead

Right now, water conservation needs to be a strategic priority for vehicle manufacturers. Considering a majority of areas that operate in are water-stressed, eliminating potable water use to the maximum extent, should be the main motto. Both automobile assembly plants and parts manufacturers need to come forward and adopt water management infrastructure within their processing plants to increase water usage efficiency and minimise discharge volumes. Changing the water footprint of car manufacturers is important.

Water is shaping up to be a serious economic risk in Asia’s third-largest economy. Desertification, land degradation and drought cost India about 2.54 percent of the gross domestic product in 2014-15, according to an India’s environment ministry study. Another global survey of miners in 2018 (CDP), stated that water-related problems such as droughts, increased water stress, and flooding would necessitate a financial impact worth USD 11.8 billion over the next five years. Smart water meters can help India win the water crisis battle faster. The smart water meter market in India is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 14.7 percent during 2019-2025 as per Frost & Sullivan Report.

While the Government have been making significant efforts to make India the best water management nation in the world, the need to work towards a digital, smart and resilient water economy to enhance the water management system– is vital! (MT)

NB: Amit Vaidya is Director, India – Metrology Business, Sensus; views expressed are personal

Comments (0)

ADD COMMENT

Link Copied!

Coretura, a 50:50 joint venture between Daimler Truck and Volvo Group, has entered into an engineering agreement with Accenture to accelerate the development of a software platform for commercial vehicles.

The company, headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, currently employs over 100 engineers. It continues to recruit specialists in system architecture, high-performance computing and cloud infrastructure to support its roadmap, which targets the delivery of its first commercialised products towards the end of the decade.

Coretura intends to create a single software platform, language and standard for trucks, buses and other heavy-duty transport vehicles. The platform is designed to support vehicle lifecycles of more than 15 years, moving the industry away from projects that require custom software development for each new vehicle.

As the engineering partner, Accenture will support development across several areas, including:

• Electrical and Electronic (E/E) architecture
• Software abstraction and hardware integration
• Embedded software, middleware, and cybersecurity
• Functional safety and cloud infrastructure

The platform aims to provide a reusable software stack to lower costs and standardise time-to-market for global manufacturers. For fleet operators, the system is designed to allow for continuous software updates and performance upgrades delivered over the air.

Johan Lunden, CEO, Coretura, said, “Our purpose is to advance mobility at the speed of ideas, and that takes depth. Building a full-stack SDV platform demands expertise across embedded software, middleware, cybersecurity, and functional safety, all designed for vehicles with lifecycles measured in decades. Accenture’s reinvention capabilities let us move faster without compromising the standards our customers depend on. This is acceleration, not course correction.”

Rainer Oder, SDV Embedded Software Lead, Accenture, added, “Helping the industry advance software-defined vehicles is a priority for Accenture. Our landmark collaboration with Coretura is designed to change embedded software engineering for automotive platforms. Together, we are looking to solve the challenges of a fully software-defined architecture – addressing critical areas such as hardware abstraction, API management and AI-based engineering optimisations.”

Comments (0)

ADD COMMENT

Link Copied!

The ePlane Company has announced the completion of its full-scale electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, the e200X. Designated PT-01, the prototype has successfully integrated all core subsystems into a single structure, marking the transition from design and simulation to physical testing.

The e200X is designed as a single airframe versatile enough to serve three distinct markets – Passenger Air Taxi, Urban Cargo Carrier and Air Ambulance.

The company emphasises that the aircraft was designed to be compact, allowing it to integrate into existing urban infrastructure without requiring significant city redesigns.

Developed at the company's own facilities in Chennai, the e200X features in-house development of major components, including propellers, airframe structure, landing gear and battery pack.

This vertical integration provides the company with control over performance, manufacturing costs, and iteration speed, having reached this milestone on approximately USD 21 million in funding.

With assembly complete, the e200X will now undergo ground testing, flight testing and certification.

Prof. Satya Chakravarthy, Founder, The ePlane Company, said, "We set out to build an electric aircraft to a world-class benchmark, engineered and manufactured in depth in India for the World.  We deliberately designed the e200X to be compact, because an aircraft that asks a city to rebuild itself around it will not solve the problem it was built to solve. The same airframe can move people as an air taxi, carry goods as a cargo aircraft, and save lives as an air ambulance, and it can do all three using the infrastructure cities already have. That combination of real capability and capital efficiency is how we intend to compete, and win, in markets around the world.”

The company’s board includes prominent figures such as Vishesh Rajaram (Speciale Invest), Eash Sundaram (JetBlue) and Aditya Ghosh (Homage, Akasa Air). The venture, incubated at IIT Madras, has also received international recognition, including being showcased at Bharat Innovates 2026 and featured in Nvidia Founder Jensen Huang’s GTC keynote.

Comments (0)

ADD COMMENT

Link Copied!

Chinese technology company Xiaomi has marked a new milestone for its automotive product offering with its electric vehicle.

The company has announced a significant milestone in autonomous vehicle technology by completing the first official autonomous lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit in Germany with the Xiaomi YU7 GT, equipped with a Track Package, navigating the 20.8 km circuit without a human driver, recording a lap time of 10:29.483.

Following this performance, the Nurburgring has introduced a new official vehicle category: Autonomous Driving (under Electric Vehicles).

The Xiaomi YU7 GT autonomously navigated all 73 corners of the Nordschleife, managing 300 metres of elevation change and varying road surface conditions. The performance was driven by Xiaomi’s autonomous driving system, which integrates the Xiaomi XLA architecture and the MiMo-Embodied foundation model introduced in March 2026. The end-to-end architecture enabled the vehicle to coordinate steering, braking and power delivery in real-time, maintaining stability under high-speed and high-load conditions.

Xiaomi’s autonomous driving programme has evolved since the 2024 launch of Xiaomi HAD. The current system moves beyond simple behaviour imitation toward autonomous decision-making and deeper environmental interpretation. The company stated that the Nurburgring project serves as a critical testing ground to collect data for refining vehicle dynamics modelling, control strategy optimisation and safety redundancy mechanisms.

This achievement underscores Xiaomi’s commitment to advancing artificial intelligence in the automotive sector through rigorous real-world validation.

Comments (0)

ADD COMMENT

Link Copied!

QuantumScape Corporation has announced a multi-year joint research agreement with Honda R&D Co., a subsidiary of Honda Motor Co.

The collaboration focuses on advancing QuantumScape’s solid-state lithium-metal battery platform, including the development of associated manufacturing processes.

This agreement follows a successful technology evaluation period during which Honda conducted a technical study and competitive benchmarking of QuantumScape’s battery platform.

Atsushi Ogawa, Chief Operating Officer, Research Center of Excellence, Honda R&D Co, said, “QS technology demonstrated compelling and unique advantages during our evaluation. We see potential for QS technology to add value across a range of applications, including automotive, and we are excited to move forward into the next phase of our partnership.”

Dr. Siva Sivaram, CEO and President, QuantumScape, added, “Honda is a leading global automaker renowned for its engineering excellence and product quality across automotive and other applications worldwide, and its evaluation represents one of the most rigorous assessments of our technology to date. This agreement reflects the growing confidence in QS solid-state lithium-metal batteries to enable safer, higher-density energy storage.”

Comments (0)

ADD COMMENT

Link Copied!