M&M ramps up electric plans

Mahindra & Mahindra’s ‘Born Electric’ fleet to be showcased on August 15 in Oxfordshire, UK, will be a game changer for the company, according to a senior advisor at British International Investment (BII). 

“The new range  we have seen is  far superior in terms of range, product assortment, comfort and convenience. I am confident it will take M&M a notch ahead of competition,” he told Autocar Professional.

R Velusamy, Chief of Global Product Development, M&M, is equally upbeat. “On August 15, it will be M&M’s right to win at Oxfordshire. And I am off to Europe.” The company will unveil its design philosophy of the EV platform that will feature futuristic human machine interface technologies.

The company’s new arm, ‘EV Co’ will launch five eSUVs  over the next four years with plans to sell 2,00,000 cars by FY ’27. BII and M&M will jointly raise Rs 8,000 crore between FY ’24 and ’27 for the range of eSUVs while Rs 2,000 crore will be additionally invested by M&M, said Rajesh Jeujrikar, Executive Director, Auto & Farm Sectors. 

Anish Shah, Managing Director & CEO, said BII and M&M will initially invest Rs 1,925 crores at a valuation of up to Rs 70,070 crore translating into 2.75-4.76 percent ownership for the former. BII will release the first tranche of Rs 1,200 crore by June 2023 and the balance Rs 725 crore by FY ’24. M&M and BII will endeavour to bring other like-minded investors on board.

Srini Nagarajan, MD & India Head Asia of BII said, “We have already invested close to $21billion in India through a clutch of various deals. Our commitment of $1 billion with the Mahindra Group is the most important single market investment we have made and an important part of our global commitment to climate strategies.”

The major focus will be the domestic market with “exports being the upside”, said Jejurikar “We are ready to carve a niche not just with product, convenience features or range but even on price with 20-30 percent of our targeted to be electric by 2027.”

As he elaborated, “Much like the Scorpio-N that has been priced attractively, our upcoming range of EVs will offer customers a significant value with aggressive pricing to attain our proposed target of 17,000 vehicles per month,” he said.

The electric XUV 400 will be the first to debut this September and deliveries will happen during January-March 2023. ICE- specific brands like ‘XUV’ will be licensed from M&M which will also provide manufacturing support design, product development, technology and sourcing services as well as access to suppliers, dealers and financiers.

On the merger of M&M’s last mile mobility business with the new ‘EV Co’ Jejurikar said each business has a specific purpose. “We do not see value in merging organisation and people capabilities but there will be some carryover in terms of rich expertise of the cells and battery packs to the new EV Co.”

According to him, MEML (Mahindra Electric Mobility) was doing good numbers with 2,600 three-wheelers retailed in June and  volumes going up rapidly. “The EV version of the Jeeto is being developed and we are quite happy with that,” he added.