Mahindra Will Seek Partnerships To Source EV Components

Anish Shah, Chief Executive Officer of Mahindra and Mahindra, has said that the company has planned to source components from other players in order to give fillip to its electric vehicle portfolio. A week ago, Mahindra and Mahindra had announced its strategic collaboration with Volkswagen where the latter was to equip the EVs of the former with battery system components, cells and motors. The CEO believes that its time to move from developing EV components in-house to make collaborations for faster growth in the electric vehicles’ sector.

Anish Shah said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum Summit at Davos, “The world is moving towards a lot more partnerships. It’s better to source the best that’s out there, rather than do everything ourselves.”

The top executive of Mahindra further added, “It’s Volkswagen at this stage and as we see similar strengths in other areas, we are open to looking at various components that we would bring in, and do what we are very good at in-house as well.” He also stated that Mahindra will employ significant funds for electric vehicles and the company will always be open to value creation opportunities.

As far as electric vehicles’ portfolio is concerned, Mahindra has primarily focused on passenger cars. Its electric sports utility vehicles (SUVs) are a hit in the market. Shah held, “Our strike zone has been authentic SUVs, that’s where we are going to stay … we are not going to make EV sedans, no hatchbacks.”

India sells about three million vehicles every year. But the travesty is that electric vehicles make just 1% of India’s annual sales of vehicles. The Central Government is bullish on promoting the manufacturing and adoption of EVs in the country through its FAME-II scheme to reduce pollution and mitigate climate change challenges.

Indian EV Marketspace

The According to the data released by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), electric vehicle retail sales in India saw over a three-fold jump in financial year 2021-22. As far as the electric car market is concerned, Tata Motors is leading with a massive more than 85% share. Against Tata Motor’s over 15,000 EV sales, Mahindra could manage to sell just 156 which tells that Mahindra is under immense competition from Tata Motors.

FADA report reveals that even MG Motor has 11% share in the Indian EV market and Mahindra stands at third position in the EV segment in the country.