India Opens Doors To Connected Cars, But Its Biggest Challenge Is Beyond Technology - Business - Published on 4 Aug 2026 6:00 AM IST India's vehicle-to-everything rollout now depends on shared standards, roadside units, cybersecurity and cross-sector collaboration. Imagine driving on a busy Indian highway when your car senses, seconds before you can, that a truck two vehicles ahead has slammed on the brakes. Or riding a two-wheeler at dusk and getting a silent alert that a pedestrian is about to step out from an unlit corner just beyond your headlights. That is the promise of vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology, and India has now taken a concrete regulatory step, marking a real turning point for connected and autonomous mobility in India, with road safety at its core. However, by every industry estimate, the mass deployment is still close to a decade from widespread use. V2X enables vehicles to wirelessly exchange real-time information with everything around them. This includes other vehicles (V2V), road infrastructure such as traffic signals and toll booths (V2I), pedestrians and cyclists (V2P), and the wider cellular network (V2N). The Rules Are Changing On August 3, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) issued a draft notification proposing a phased rollout of V2V communication systems. Under the proposed timeline, authorised vehicles will need to comply with the AIS-230 standard if fitted with V2V systems from October 2027, with mandatory fitment from October 2028. These systems let nearby vehicles exchange real-time data on speed, position, direction and acceleration, giving drivers advance warnings. This follows a series of steps already underway to build India's connected-vehicle framework. In June, India scrapped licensing requirements for two radio frequency bands used in advanced vehicle safety systems, by removing a regulatory hurdle that had made deploying V2X technologies slower and costlier than in the