Behind Tata Group's ambitious plans to ramp up its EV business

Tata sons-controlled tata Motors continues to show its commitment towards electric mobility, especially after its luxury arm Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) Automotive announced that its Halewood, Liverpool plant will become an all-electric vehicle production facility. JLR has further said its next generation medium-size SUV architecture will now be purely electric as it takes concrete steps towards its financial goals of achieving a net-cash positive position by FY25. Incidentally, Tata Motors is already India’s largest electric carmaker, with over 80 per cent market share.

With an investment of over £4 billion, the group has also announced plans to build a 40-gigawatt (GW) battery cell gigafactory in the UK that will develop electric mobility and renewable energy storage solutions for customers in the UK and Europe, with JLR and Tata Motors as the anchor customers, and supplies commencing from 2026. “The Tata group is deeply committed to a sustainable future across all of our business. Today, I am delighted to announce the Tata group will be setting up one of Europe’s largest battery cell manufacturing facility in the UK,” said N. Chandrasekaran, Chairman of Tata Sons. This massive investment is an integral part of Tata group’s commitment to electric mobility and renewable energy storage solutions.

Other automakers like Mahindra & Mahindra, too, are intensifying their EV play. For instance, Mahindra has signed a new term agreement with Germany-based Volkswagen Group that goes beyond merely sharing electric components from VW’s MEB (modular electric drive matrix) toolkit in the XUV and BE (Born Electric) branded SUVs. They are now considering developing charging and energy solutions and locally manufacturing batteries.

But challenges abound, say industry players. “Legacy players (like Tata)... are a bit late. They should have done this years ago. And when will they start manufacturing in India?... Now there will be a lot of activity from both Indian and global players, especially when it comes to battery cells. But I think not enough is being done to achieve our targets. Our vision is clear but the roadmap is not,” says Sohinder Gill, Director General of Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles.

One thing is for sure; the race among automakers to go electric just got more interesting.

@PLidhoo