India is also moving towards non-ICE cars, mainly electrical vehicles (EVs). Electrical vehicles are governed by automotive chips used in their battery management system. Though India has good expertise in chip design, we hear about the cases of the blowup of electric vehicles. These vehicles blow up because of the wrong chips in their batteries. NBX, a spinoff of Philips, makes automotive chips in India, which are the size of a thumbnail and has 4 billion transistors. The node size of the chip is of 5 nanometers.

The reason why electric scooters catch fire is their detective battery management systems (BMS). Think about a laptop chip. A laptop is not exposed to sub-zero temperatures or monsoon rains. It also does not work in high temperatures. Indian market cannot afford high prices, and therefore it uses the cheaper consumer electronics chips.

As we have learnt in another article on autonomous cars, there are five levels of autonomy, where the last fifth level gives you a fully autonomous car without a steering wheel. Right now, the focus is on level three cars — a car that can drive itself on highways where traffic is less complex.

Just as a human body is a brain on shoes, car is a brain on wheels. Between the various functional levels, there is an entire body. It requires real time electronics. It is not about ML or AI. A car needs creativity when it gets stuck. It cannot stop behind a parked car for hours — it must have creativity to move ahead.

Car chip makers are taking baby steps when it comes to generative AI. They do it carefully.