EV programs at Legacy OEMs are delayed by a maximum of 24 months, not due to legal obstacles or capital shortages, but due to demolition in coordination, bandwidth and supplier coordination. In short: the machine is running, but the gears grind.
Legacy structures cannot handle parallel programs
The car industry of India is confronted with a transition dilemma of how to build the future without pausing the present. Most old car manufacturers continue to carry out ice and EV programs in parallel, often with shared engineering, validation and purchasing sources. These overlapping structures, designed for incremental development, is now expected to produce transformational change.
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The result is a deeply fragmented implementation chain. Vector's data shows that more than 60 percent of Tier-1's at the same time more than 10 programs are involved, over several OEMs, with minimal visibility of volume stocks or the duration of the design. The consequences? Chronic re -work, changes to the late stage and delayed product willingness.
“For many OEMs, the same technical bandwidth has been stretched over both ICE and EV. And where dedicated EV teams exist, they still work on old systems that are not built for the pace or complexity of today's product cycles,” said Ravindra Patki, Managing Partner at Vector Consulting Group.
Suppliers are struggling in the dark
While OEM's struggling with parallel priorities, suppliers of Tier-1 are pushed to deliver faster, cheaper and with less clarity. The study showed that more than 70 percent of Tier-1's last-minute design design freezes, powered by poor coordination upstream. This eats in margins and introduces risks, mainly because suppliers now have to develop new EV architectures, such as power electronics, battery management units and software packs.
The partnership is still quite transactional. Suppliers are often brought in at the last minute, as soon as program goals and specifications have been set, with little opportunity for design feedback or process compatibility. Vector argues that, unless this model is evolving towards real co-development, technical capacity will remain the bottleneck in the EV transition of India.
Startups are fast, but not immune
EV -startups, free from Ice Langacies, seem better positioned – but their speed often masks structural holes. According to the study, most startups promise about the launch period lines and trust OTA Fixes Post launch to cover technical shortages.
Although this strategy makes rapid iteration possible, this also means higher costs of quality, exposure to brand reputation and disruption with suppliers, which are usually left to climb to review or revise changes afterwards. “The start -up model prices speed on stability,” Patki noted. “But unless that speed is supported by structured implementation and supplier alignment, it is not sustainable to scale.”
Where the model breaks down
Vector's study identifies three critical points where the Indian implementation model of the car breaks down. The first challenge is the persistence of internal silos within OEMs – Engineering, Sourcing and quality continue to work independently and without integrated cooperation, leading to duplication of efforts and miscommunication.
The second challenge is not at the start of the third phase of the process to involve suppliers. Too many suppliers are too late to change the design and are obliged to rework decisions in development, while the costs and the risk are taken that is accompanied by re -carrying out the work downstream. The third challenge takes place when following the program itself, with product maturity that is still measured by milestone control lists and not by a reliable, objective, real -time, measurable indication of readyness.
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To meet these challenges, the report recommends a complete reconsideration of how OEMs and suppliers work together. It orders to set up special EV program teams that are structurally separated from ICE operations, which eliminates capacity and priority conflicts. It also calls for the implementation of real-time producture dashboards tools that follow technical progress between functions and partners, in one shared system.
Another important suggestion is the institutionalization of the assessments of joint execution, where OEMs and suppliers are routinely well evaluating project health. Finally, Vector emphasizes the need for capacity -related planning, where technical bandwidth is treated as a core source planned and protected instead of reactively stretched.
Ultimately, the report argues that the solution is not to just hire more engineers or push it harder in time lines. It is to build a smarter, more cooperation system, one that is designed to handle the complexity and speed of the EV transformation of India.
In essence, the solution is not in hiring more engineers or hurrying the timeline -but when designing a better implementation system, end -to -end.
Implementation will decide the winners
The shift to electric mobility is not only a product challenging, but it is an organizational. As Patki summarized: “The winners of this decade will not be those with the best EV concept or the most aggressive launch goal. They will be those who can reliably and repeatedly launch, scale and improve.”
For an industry at the intersection of disruption and opportunities, that means going beyond old habits. Not only building EVs – but building new systems that EVs can deliver, at speed, with scale and with fewer surprises. The transition is no longer only about batteries and platforms. It is about implementation and the car industry of India now learns in the difficult way.
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First published date: June 19, 2025, 9:00 am is