By-Rohit R
Following roads minister Nitin Gadkari’s reprimand to carmakers to start manufacturing electric vehicles or be overtaken by policy changes, for Motown, the choice is clear — it’s either the e-way, or the highway. “Don’t get confused over policy and rules, foray into electric bikes, buses and cars. I won’t seek your suggestions over this. You have to diversify,” Gadkari told auto industry executives at their annual conference last week.
Though carmakers such as Maruti Suzuki have evinced interest in setting up battery plants, as of now, Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is perhaps best positioned to steal a march over others with the highest number of variants in the e-vehicle category countrywide.
On the sidelines of the sixth e-vehicle launch from the company last week, Mahindra Electric Mobility CEO Arvind Mathew told FE that plans were afoot to manufacture batteries, currently imported from China, in India. When asked about likely investments and partnerships in such space, Mathew refused to divulge details.
Nevertheless, if the project goes through, it will be the first-of-its-kind in the country and will complement the government’s plan of incentivising manufacturers for setting up facilities to make lithium-ion batteries in India to lower the cost of electric vehicles.
M&M automotive division president Rajan Wadhera told FE that the shift to e-vehicles in the industry would begin with commercial vehicles owing to higher running cost of e-vehicles over their gasoline counterparts. “Due to higher prices (of e-vehicles), the customer will tend to buy electric vehicles for commercial purpose instead of personal use as it will become an earning source for them.”
In May, Union heavy industries minister Anant Geete had said efforts were being made to remodel the battery made by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) so that it could be used in e-vehicles. Geete added that Bharat Heavy Electricals would invest `100 crore for a battery-manufacturing facility.
Today, the only country manufacturing lithium batteries is China with auto majors such as SAIC and BYD investing heavily in electric technology. India, on the other hand, is revving up indigenous production by levying the bare minimum 12% GST on pure-play e-vehicles.
