Tata Motors will aggressively push its presence in electric vehicles (EVs) and launch 10 new battery-electric vehicles by 2025 across segments in India, its chairman, N Chandrasekaran, has said.
The company, which has the largest share of India’s electric car market, will also invest in lithium-ion cell manufacturing in India and Europe to establish a proper supply chain for its zero-emission vehicles in the coming decade.
“In India, EV penetration in our portfolio has now doubled to 2 per cent this year and we expect the penetration to increase exponentially in the coming years. Tata Motors will lead this change in the Indian market. By 2025, Tata Motors will have 10 new BEV vehicles,” Chandrasekaran said, addressing shareholders in the annual report for FY 21.
This comes at a time when the government is nudging automobile makers to develop and manufacture EVs to reduce carbon footprint, and has brought out policies offering incentives to buyers opting for such vehicles.
In the FY22 Budget, the government announced the lowering of goods and services tax on EVs to 5 per cent from 12 per cent, and offered income-tax incentives to individuals purchasing EVs.
Currently, Tata Motors has two fully electric models — Nexon EV and Tigor EV — in the market. The electric version of the Altroz is expected to be launched in the coming months. The Nexon EV is India’s best-selling electric passenger vehicle with sales of more than 4,000 units since its launch in January 2020.
The development of an EV ecosystem, from manufacturing to battery plant to after-sales service, requires collaboration from a diverse set of businesses. The Tata group has been one of the early identifiers of this challenge and have marshalled the expertise of group companies into building it.
At the launch of Nexon, the company’s first EV, Chandrasekaran had announced that seven Tata group companies — Tata Motors, Tata Power, Tata Chemicals, Croma, Tata Auto Components, and Tata Motors Finance — would work together to build a complete ecosystem for EVs.
Earlier this year, the company’s British subsidiary, Jaguar Land Rover, announced that six out of every 10 Land Rover models would go electric by 2030 as it ditches the combustion engine in favour of the zero-emission technology as part of its ‘Reimagine’ strategy.
Tata Motors’ peers have diverse strategies towards cleaner mobility. While the largest carmaker, Maruti Suzuki, is pinning its hopes on CNG vehicles, Mahindra & Mahindra has reorganised and set up a separate vertical for the EV business.
Analysts said high fuel prices and the government’s subsidy push would act as supporting factors for stronger adoption of EVs over 2020-2023, leading to an average annual growth rate of 26 per cent.
“We believe the focus on EV promotion in the Union Budget will improve longer-term outlook for EV sales but will continue to fall way short of the country’s goal of electrifying all new vehicles sold by 2032,” Fitch Solutions said in a recent report.
