India’s Tata Motors wants to sell 50,000 electric vehicles by the end of the financial year – TechCrunch

Mumbai-based automaker Tata Motors aims to sell 50,000 electric vehicles by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, company chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran told a shareholders’ meeting on Monday. .

During the 2023/24 period, Tata – which produces passenger cars, trucks, vans, coaches, buses, luxury cars and construction equipment – ​​aims to reach 100,000 electric vehicle sales, according to Chandrasekaran, as reported by Reuters.

The push towards electric vehicles follows a national plan to ensure that up to 30% of total passenger car sales in India will be electric by 2030, up from around 1% today. E-scooters and e-bikes will account for 80% of two-wheeler sales, up from 2% today. Given the Indian government’s high import duties on electric vehicles, getting citizens to go electric will largely depend on the success of local production.

After trying to bring its electric vehicles to the Indian market, Tesla appears to have abandoned efforts to set up a factory in the country. Tesla generally has a “try before you buy” approach to entering new markets – it imports vehicles to see how sales go before investing time and money in building a regional factory. Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said Tesla was welcome to build a factory in the country, but that would not allow the automaker to bring vehicles from China to sell and service them, so Tesla does not has not moved forward with these plans.

Tata currently sells three models of electric vehicles, including Nexon EV, Tigor EV and the newest Nexon EV Max. Unlike the path taken by many US automakers to build new electric vehicle production lines from scratch, Tata says it is able to cut costs for the Indian consumer by repurposing a combustion engine model successful internal device, the Nexon, and equipping it with a battery. The Nexon starts at around $19,000, which isn’t exactly cheap for the average Indian driver, but is certainly in the country’s upper middle class range.

Tata controls 90% of electric car sales in India and appears to be on track to meet its target of selling 50,000 electric vehicles by March 2022. The automaker’s June sales results show a total of 45,197 units sold, of which 3,507 were electric. never sold, and up 433% from 658 last year.

Chandrasekaran was optimistic about Tata’s performance trajectory this fiscal year, with the overall supply situation, including that of semiconductors, improving and stabilizing.