Amid the government’s ongoing push to electrify all vehicles on road by 2030, India’s leading utility vehicle maker Mahindra and Mahindra on Tuesday said the company is bullish on the electric market and is in plans to equip all its crossovers and SUVs with electric powertrains in the future.
As the first step in part of its plans, Mahindra announced that it will launch the electric KUV100 in a year from now and said the company is betting big on electric.
"We will be launching the KUV Electric one year from now. The drive towards electrification is visible, whether it is 20 per cent or 100 per cent, one does not know what the penetration will be, but Mahindra will be prepared to face the situation," Pawan Goenka, MD, Mahindra and Mahindra, said while launching the new KUV 100 NXT (at Rs 4.39 lakh to 7.33 lakh).
The company has already committed an investment to the tune of Rs 3500 crore to Rs 4000 crore on future electric vehicle portfolio and technology. Its electrification plans, however, will be restricted to compact SUVs like KUV 100 and s201 platform vehicles.
For now, the company is not planning to bring electric power terrain in bigger SUVs like Scorpio and XUV500.
Partnership with Ford Motor
The development comes amid reports that Mahindra and Mahindra is looking to join hands with Ford Motor to build a new electric sedan as it looks to capture the growing electric vehicles market in India.
According to a report in Mint, Mahindra is set to procure a transportation software for its electric sedan. Through the partnership, Ford will have access to the Mumbai-headquartered automotive company’s EV technologies.
“Pawan Goenka, along with his colleagues at Mahindra Electric, has inspected the platform while signing off on a partnership with Ford in September. Ford will get electric technology of Mahindra. So far, that’s the only point of discussion in that direction,” it quoted a source as saying.
As per sources, the proposed partnership will focus on a number of different areas, including mobility programmes, electrification, product development, connected vehicles, sourcing, manufacturing and distribution within India.
Tata Motors vs Mahindra and Mahindra
The news of the possible alliance comes within days of Tata Motors winning a government tender for 10,000 electric vehicles in NCR. Mahindra, one of the six companies bidding for the tender, later said that it would match Tata Motors’ lowest bid of $15,564 (Rs 10.16 Lakh) per vehicle in a bid to partner with the government in its electric mobility project.
Mahindra’s bid was Rs 2.3 lakh higher per vehicle than Tata’s. Mahindra will lose about Rs 3 crore on the 150 electric sedans that it will supply to the government.
Electric Market Growing
According to a report by the Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles, India has witnessed a 37.5 per cent increase in the sale of electric vehicles in recent years. The growth has, in part, to do with the government’s efforts to switching to 100 per cent electric vehicles by 2030.
India’s shift to electric vehicles will help reduce both pollution and its exorbitant fuel import bill which is expected to double from $150 billion to $300 billion by 2030. The government has set a target of selling 6 million electric vehicles by 2020.
