Bosch, Endurance say ready to meet govt ABS mandate for smaller bikes, allay supply fears of auto lobby

This stance taken by the two ABS makers is in direct contrast to the claims of two wheeler majors conveyed to the government that the domestic industry will be unable to meet the demand for these brakes if a draft mandate is implemented from 1 January.

Currently, only two wheelers with an engine capacity above 125cc are required to have ABS. These accounted for 16% of total 19 million sales in the financial year 2025. Bosch and Endurance together hold about 60-70% of ABS supply market share in India, as per research and advisory firm Kotak Institutional Equities.

Members of industry lobby Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam) have pushed the government to delay the norms citing supply concerns.

While Bosch told analysts that there is no concern regarding the ability of its sister company which makes such components to meet fresh demand, the management of Endurance Technologies said that it is increasing capacity some five times.

The Endurance management also said that it is lining up key components from all production lines to meet ABS demand of automakers quickly.

Leading two wheeler players Bajaj Auto, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, TVS Motor Co., and Hero Motocorp were among those expressing apprehensions of the ABS supply constraints.

Tech, scale not an issue

Som Kapoor, partner at EY, said that there is no technology gap which has to be overcome for making ABS technology in India, so scaling supplies should not be a major challenge in India.

"There are many global companies present in the segment which are operating in India. Implementation of the norms would lead to a surge in business for these firms so they will be happy to take on the incremental demand," Kapoor said.

Guruprasad Mudlapur, managing director and CTO at Bosch India, said that Bosch’s sister company, Bosch Chassis Systems India Pvt Ltd, is one of the leading players in making ABS.

“In terms of capacities, we are very well prepared to handle the increased demand that's likely to come out of changes in legislation," Mudlapur told investors on 11 November during the Q2 results earnings call. “If the mandate gets implemented as in the draft, we are very well prepared to handle that."

On it post-earnings call on 13 November, Endurance's managing director Anurang Jain said the company has ordered a production line that can help increase ABS capacity by 1.2 million units and is ready to order a similar line depending on the government decision — taking up the new capacity to 2.4 million.

“We have a line of sight to use that line but we'll have to see what is the timeline which comes under this new guideline and the second 1.2 million line we will order based on this guideline, which we get this month," Jain said, adding that its current capacity of 640,000 will be fully utilised to meet ABS demand by the end of March 2026.

“For the large increase in volumes of single-channel ABS, we are lining up backward integration of steel-bred hoses, valves and ECU assemblies. We also plan to install part of the ECU printed circuit boards leads through our SMT line," Jain said. ECU is short for electronic control unit.

Endurance, incidentally, has a long association with the two wheeler industry. The company was founded in 1985 to supply aluminum castings to Bajaj Auto by Jain, a nephew of late Rahul Bajaj, chairman emeritus of the Bajaj group of companies until his death in 2022.

Safety vs cost

While ABS improves safety for two wheelers by ensuring that brakes don’t lock on roads to prevent skidding, the installation of the system can lead to a price hike of ₹3,000 to ₹6,000. This, leading automakers fear, will hurt the demand of entry level bikes in the country.

Moreover, leaders at Bajaj Auto and Honda have publicly said that suppliers of India will not be able to meet the demand of companies and will need more time to prepare.

“It will be difficult to manage the capacity because that doesn't obviously exist. This includes all scooters, all 100cc, all 125cc bikes, which is a huge component and therefore obviously, the government… has taken note of this that there will have to be a phase-wise execution," Rakesh Sharma, executive director at Bajaj Auto, said on the discussions with the government.

Honda Motorcycle’s director of sales Yogesh Mathur told Mint in an interview in July that the dependence on imports will increase substantially if the government doesn’t extend the deadline.

“Cost is definitely there as an impact. But more important is in terms of whether we are really prepared from the supply side point of view," Mathur said then.

A group representing two wheeler makers and Siam had met Union roads minister Nitin Gadkari on 11 November to raise concerns about the implementation of the norms.

Queries sent to Siam, Bajaj Auto, Honda, TVS, and Hero remained unanswered at the time of publishing.