“What makes us human?” asks British actor Benedict Cumberbatch in iconic British motor brand Morris Garages’ (MG) latest advertisement for its Hector SUV running on Indian screens. “Sometimes it feels like we have forgotten. Maybe we can learn again from someone who’s been learning from us,” he says.

“Welcome Benedict,” says a voice inside the burgundy-red SUV as he gets into the driver’s seat.

“Hello MG,” replies Cumberbatch.As he begins to drive, on his voice command, the artificial intelligence (AI)-based virtual assistant turns the AC on, plays his favourite music, and opens the sunroof.

“Thanks Hector! That was fun,” says Cumberbatch as he gets out and locks the car upon reaching his destination.

MG’s pitch to Indian audiences is a snapshot of the current trend in the Indian auto scene: AI-enabled connected cars for the young, tech-savvy, pop-culture-loving consumer. The 95-year-old Birmingham-based company—a subsidiary of Shanghai-based SAIC Motor since 2008—has long been popular in India as a maker of classic sports cars, roadsters, and cabriolets. With the Hector, MG has entered the growing premium SUV segment. Except this is not your typical SUV. The company likes to call the Hector India’s first “Internet car”; in other words, it’s India’s first connected car. “Basically, this means that you are always connected to your surroundings on a real-time basis. It means that you get real-time,not really algorithm-based traffic [updates]. It means if there is an emergency, we can run the services to you,and much more. If Internet 2.0 was about touch, Internet 3.0 is going to be about the talk,” explains Rajeev Chaba, president and MD of MG Motor India.

MG unveiled the Hector in India in May. Chaba doesn’t think the late entry into the premium SUV market in India is a concern. “Some will say that we have a huge challenge since we’re late, but on the other hand, it’s also an opportunity. We were very clear about our launch story.We thought that one way of differentiating our brand from the competition is to lead certain changes,” he says.

Like MG, many other global and domestic automakers have launched models equipped with new technology and design as they vie for a slice of India’s automobile market pie. India is expected to have twice as many vehicles on road by 2040. “The future is going to be very exciting. India is a massive opportunity. There will be more technological churn... autonomous-driving features will start coming to India like lane driving and lane switching going forward,” Chaba says. The future may look promising, but the present and the recent past have been rather grim. The world’s fourth-largest automobile market is going through a really rough patch. Sales have hit the skids for more than a year; passenger vehicle sales plunged 26.03% in May from a year ago—the steepest decline in nearly 18 years. A liquidity crunch and concerns over the results ahead of the recently-concluded general election weighed heavily on market sentiment, slowing down demand. The industry—which is racing against time to meet the deadline for the Bharat Stage (BS) VI emission norms—sees no sign of recovery soon. Many automakers are cutting down on production to cope with burgeoning inventories from falling sales.

Benedict Cumberbatch

Future of mobility: It’s clean and connected