India's push toward connected vehicles is colliding with one of the world's most unpredictable driving environments, and automakers are being told to prove their technology can survive it before it reaches public roads.
The government's proposed mandate for Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Everything communication from October 2028 is expected to reshape how safety systems are developed, tested and certified in the country. The idea is straightforward: vehicles should be able to exchange information such as position, speed and movement so they can warn one another about potential collisions and other hazards. The challenge, however, is anything but simple in India, where traffic rarely behaves in neat, controlled patterns.
That is why simulation is moving from a useful engineering tool to a critical part of the development process. With India recording 1.83 lakh road fatalities in 2025, about 6,000 more than the previous year, the pressure to improve road safety is intensifying. But testing connected safety systems only on public roads is both impractical and unsafe, especially when those systems are expected to make split-second decisions in dense, chaotic traffic.
Andreas Gau, CEO of dSPACE India Solutions, and Brenton Jude Pereira, Head of Business Development and Marketing, told YourStory that the Indian market demands a different engineering mindset from more orderly driving environments abroad. "What works in Japan or Germany simply won't work in India," Pereira said, underscoring the need to account for two-wheelers moving between lanes, agricultural vehicles, livestock, unmarked intersections and sudden obstacles that can appear without warning.
That complexity becomes even more pronounced as vehicles become increasingly software-defined. In a software-defined vehicle, much of the intelligence that governs safety, performance and connectivity is controlled by code rather than fixed mechanical systems. For automakers, that means the quality of simulation and validation can determine whether a feature is merely functional in theory or dependable in the real world.
Founded in Germany in 1988, dSPACE entered India in 2009 initially through DynaFusion. In 2023, it established its operations in the country under dSPACE India Solutions Private Limited. The company now employs more than 160 engineers in India, with teams spread across engineering, software development, sales and support. It says it generates almost Rs 200 crore in local revenue and serves a broad customer base that includes traditional automotive companies, commercial vehicle makers, defense and aerospace firms, and EV startups.
Its work in India is closely tied to the country's expanding automotive and software-defined vehicle markets. The company supports manufacturers and technology firms testing electronic control units, advanced driver assistance systems, electric mobility components and other systems that increasingly depend on software, sensors and connectivity. As vehicles become more connected, the stakes of getting the testing wrong rise sharply.
For dSPACE, the answer is to recreate India's road conditions virtually before engineers ever take a vehicle onto a test track. Its Software-in-the-Loop technology allows engineers to test control software in a virtual environment, creating a digital representation of vehicle control units before physical hardware is available. As development advances, Hardware-in-the-Loop testing brings actual electronic control units into the simulation, while sensors, motors, communication systems and environmental conditions can all be digitally reproduced.
That approach lets engineers observe how real hardware responds to situations that would otherwise require expensive, time-consuming and potentially dangerous road testing. For V2V systems, it also makes it possible to simulate multiple vehicles, communication failures and rapidly changing traffic conditions without putting drivers, passengers or pedestrians at risk.
The broader significance of this shift is hard to ignore. India's connected-car ambitions are no longer just about adding convenience features or keeping pace with global automotive trends. They are increasingly tied to a public safety problem that has grown more urgent with every passing year. If the country is to make connected safety systems work on its roads, engineers will need to design for the disorder, not the ideal.
In that sense, simulation is not merely a development shortcut. It is becoming the proving ground for a future in which cars must learn to anticipate the unexpected before they are trusted to share the road with it.