Tatas confirm half-a-million PV sales target for FY23

Tata Motors plans to sell 50,000 electric vehicles in fiscal 2023 and double that figure in fiscal 2024, said N Chandrasekaran, Chairman of Tata Motors at the 77th Annual General Meeting (AGM). He also confirmed that the company’s passenger vehicle (PV) sales target for the current fiscal is 500,000 units. Autocar Professional broke this story in its issue dated 1 April 2022.

Elaborating on EVs, the chairman said Tata Motors would add 10 EVs to the existing product portfolio which would help the company enhance its market share by 25 percent by 2025 building on the robust demand that has swelled its EV sales from just 5,000 units in fiscal 2021 to 19,500 units at present. If things go as planned, EVs would account for 10 percent of the company total sales in the current fiscal.

Commenting on the recent fire that engulfed a Tata Nexon, Chandrasekharan said “it shouldn’t have happened in the first place” and his company’s R&D team would take extra cautions to ensure that there were no repeat incidents.

In his address to shareholders which was held virtually, he confirmed the company’s $2 billion investment in the passenger electric vehicle business with the firm expecting its second tranche from TPG in the third quarter of the current fiscal after having invested Rs 7,500 crore last year.

With regard to ramping up of capacities, Chandrasekaran while confirming the acquisition of Ford India factory in Sanand said it will add to the existing capex plans so as to help the firm to cater to the growing demand.

On the immediate outlook for the company, the chairman said that in the light of challenges the company has gone through, he expects the second half of FY23 to be better than the first. He told shareholders that free cash flow (automotive) in the year, was negative at Rs 9,472 crore (as compared to positive Rs 5,317 crore in FY21), primarily due to adverse working capital. However, the auto business showed a strong sequential recovery with positive free cash flow (automotive) of Rs 11,916 crore in the second half of fiscal 2022.

Chandrasekaran said Tata Motors’ domestic business had garnered sales growth of 49 percent by volumes and 11.5 percent by revenues. “Despite the margins being impacted by supply chain issues and runaway commodity inflation, the India business ended with strong free cash flows of Rs 1,879 crore,” he said. On dividends, he said the company “will be back to paying dividends very soon”.

Chandrasekharan said fiscal 2022 global wholesales increased by 20 percent to 10,86,734 vehicles and revenue stood at Rs 278,454 crore, 11.5 percent higher as compared to FY21. The PV segment was once again the standout performer during the year recording its highest ever domestic annual sales of 370,354 units, up 67 percent over FY21. The preference for our ‘New Forever’ range of vehicles continues to rise and the introduction of over 25 new products and variants to lead in the fastest growing market segments paid off, he said. The launch of India’s first sub-compact SUV ‘Punch’ and CNG-powered ‘Tiago’ and ‘Tigor’ added further “zest to our vehicle mix to deliver incremental volumes”, he added.

Tata Motors’s overall PV market share grew to 13.4 percent in Q4 FY22 and Nexon is now consistently ranked as India’s No. 1 SUV and Punch consistently figures in the top 5 SUVs sold every month.

On Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), Tata Chairman said the award-winning Defender, New Range Rover as well as the new Range Rover Sport are raking in good demand and the company has a strong order book pipeline.

Chandra said JLR’s single largest challenge is to seek lower breakeven levels and overall cost reduction to move towards profitability while addressing the supply side issues to maintain prudent costs and in mitigating inflation-related headwinds this year. “Jaguar Land Rover has embarked on the ‘Reimagine’ journey to embrace an “electric future” and “we are making rapid progress in our plans for developing a new generation of electric vehicles with our all-electric Jaguar strategy and BEV first EMA platform for new Land Rover products”, he said. For fiscal 2022, JLR’s revenues were £18.3 billion, down 7 percent from the prior year. Retail sales were at 376,381 units, down 14 percent compared to the previous fiscal.

“While the near-term outlook may be fluid with multiple challenges that I outlined above, the business is taking the right actions to navigate them, and I am confident that we will emerge stronger,” he signed off.