Home-grown diversified engineering company Greaves Cotton is aggressively working on its localisation of electric vehicle components to qualify for subsidies under the FAME-II scheme, a top company executive told Mobility Outlook in an exclusive interaction.
The company has recently announced an investment of INR 700 crore for over ten years to support this. It has set up a plant at Ranipet, Tamil Nadu and expects to be operational by the end of this year. The plant will have a capacity to scale production up to one million units. However, the company aims to produce 100,000 units in the first year of its operations.
“Whatever we need for high-speed electric scooters to qualify under the FAME-II scheme, we are working with local supply chain partners in different categories to increase localisation in order to reduce dependency on foreign markets while following the PMP guidelines,” said Nagesh Basavanhalli, MD & CEO, Greaves Cotton.
“We have moved away from a lot of foreign suppliers to local suppliers for our high-speed electric scooters. We have transitioned there. Even for slow speed electric scooters also we are transitioning to Indian suppliers. This is the only reason we chose Ranipet as the location to produce electric vehicles as there are a lot of two-wheeler suppliers present between Bengaluru and Chennai,” he added.
The company also evaluates and compares parts that they can manufacture versus what they can buy to further increase the localisation level.
According to the FAME-II scheme, a minimum of 50% localised content in electric three-wheelers, two-wheelers, cars and e-rickshaw to get the subsidy benefits.
So far, lithium cells and battery cells have been imported from other countries. However, for battery pack assembly, battery management software, motors, controllers and the rest of the parts, the company is either working with its own designs already or working with strategic partners, added Basavanhalli.
Greaves Cotton acquired Ampere in 2018 to diversify its business. Ever since the acquisition, Ampere’s revenue has jumped multi-fold from INR 18 crore to INR 180 crore in three years. The company has launched three products along with its successful model Magnus Pro.
The electric vehicle business revenues have jumped from 5% to 12% in the overall business in FY21. Greaves Cotton clocked a total revenue of INR 1,200 crore in FY21.
Further, the company plans to expand its product portfolio in the electric two-wheeler and electric three-wheeler segment and expand its network this year. Currently, it has 328 dealers across 200 cities.
On the outlook, Basavanhalli said, “This time, the market will rebound quickly as vaccination is going on. We will continue to do things within our control. We will invest in new plants and e-mobility and newer areas. There will be a short-term hitch in retail sales due to lockdowns, but demand for personal mobility will increase, and so the rebound will happen”.