Playing catch-up in the personal electric mobility space, Mahindra Electric is aiming to march ahead in the last-mile mobility segment. Led by strong demand, the company is planning to double its production capacity and it is in the midst of expanding its product portfolio, which will entail an addition of close to half a dozen new vehicles, across electric three and four wheelers (quadricycles).
According to people in the know, the company is likely to invest close to INR 300 crore for its last-mile mobility business which is about 10% of its allocated EV biz investment.
The company is likely to close FY22 with the volumes of about 14,000 to 15,000 EVs, which could potentially double in FY23 provided semiconductor challenges do not aggravate.
While the production capacity at its Bengaluru facility is likely to touch about 30,000 units, people in the know say, M&M could potentially produce and sell about 1 lakh three-wheeler EVs annually by 2024-2025 and it is already gearing its vendor base to plan accordingly. Suman Mishra, CEO, Mahindra Electric Mobility told ET, “We are witnessing very strong demand, we hope to surpass all of the year-to-date sales again in the next quarter alone. We are seeing a strong tailwind, we expect to see the scale, size and sector to grow significantly.”
M&M believes in the coming three to five years, electric vehicle penetration will touch 30% of the overall three-wheeler volumes. Mishra expects that the three-wheeler market may regain its previous peak (5-6 lakh units) in the coming three years.
Already this financial year, the last-mile mobility division of Mahindra has sold about 7,000 electric vehicles and it is confident of selling similar numbers in the next quarter alone.
According to vendors supplying to the company, the plan is to double the volumes next year itself
Mishra is however non-committal on both the investments, volumes or the new products. “We don’t report exact numbers, but suffice to say they are growing and demand is very strong, “she added.The company is witnessing traction for both last mile personal and commercial mobility.
Because of the FAME subsidy along with sops of the local state government subsidies, in some of the states like Gujarat, Maharashtra and Delhi, the acquisition price of EV is quite similar to CNG run EVs.
Having already grabbed a leadership position in the electric three-wheeler space, the company is planning to come out with a range of swappable battery solutions post its partnership with Jio-BP, wherein the company plans to adopt a cluster-based approach. This will ensure adequate charging facilities and optimum fleet utilisation.
In tandem with Jio-BP – which has a network of 1400 petrol pumps, Mahindra Electric is currently identifying dozens of hotspots across the country where it will be targeting to offer its Electric three wheelers for personal as well as goods transport, say people in the know. This partnership will pull for a further acceleration in the three-wheeler EV Biz.
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EV registrations in November 2021 were driven largely by electric two-wheelers and passenger-type electric three-wheelers, which together accounted for 92% of total registrations in the month
Both companies are also looking at ways to handle the semiconductor shortage in a better way next year so that the impact on the production is minimal.