EESL Trims EV Order by a Massive 70%, After Andhra Cancellation

EESL has scaled down its EV order by a whopping 70 percent to 3,000 units and blamed its largest customer Andhra Pradesh for the crisis.

Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) has scaled down its electric vehicle (EV) order by a whopping 70 percent to 3,000 units and blamed its largest customer Andhra Pradesh for the crisis as the present Jaganmohan Reddy government has canceled the orders placed by the previous Chandrababu Naidu administration.

EESL had in 2017 placed orders for 10,000 electric vehicle sedans from Tata Motors (Tigor) and Mahindra (Verito) after a lengthy bidding process by March 2019. However, due to subdued demand and certain issues pertaining to their range, the timeline for supply was later extended to March 2020.

Of the total order, the companies have completed delivery of 2,000 units so far (most by Tata Motors), ESSL managing director Saurabh Kumar said.

“We have decided that by March 2020 whatever the number of vehicles is delivered to us we will close the order at that level,” Kumar told on the sidelines of the two-day international symposium on energy efficiency. He expects 1,000-odd units to come in by March.

He said the largest order for these EVs came from Andhra when Chandrababu Naidu was the chief minister, but the Jagan Reddy government has stopped taking deliveries since coming to power in May.

Kumar said the bidding for 10,000 EVs in 2017 was done with a view that “we will be able to aggregate demand and the largest order came from Andhra. But the new government in the state has stopped taking deliveries.”

He also said EESL has not taken a decision on the next bidding as a lot of the existing and new players are looking to bring new models with different pricing.

“We will see. A lot of new launches are on the way, including from Tata Motors and Mahindra as well as from MG Motor. We will see what prices they offer. Accordingly, we will decide,” he said.

Last month, ESSL had placed an order for 10 Hyundai Motor’s Kona electric SUVs of which four have already been delivered at a reported price of Rs 23.71 lakh.