On electric vehicles, the road forks for Motown’s top two

When it comes to mobility in future, the road forks for India’s auto industry leaders.

While No1 Mahindra & Mahindra is betting on the electric vehicle, or EV, as the future of transport, No2 Tata Motors believes the emphasis on that source of power is misplaced.

“There are not enough incentives or infrastructure and costs are high. Lithium-ion batteries are expensive. In a country where electricity is mostly generated using polluting coal, where power doesn’t reach a lot of people, emphasis on EVs is misplaced,” said P M Telang, managing director-India, Tata Motors.

Pawan Goenka, on the other hand, is gung-ho. The president of M&M’s auto and farm business, wants you to imagine going from Connaught Place to New Delhi airport spending just Rs10 on ‘energy’.

That’s 62 paise per kilometre for the 16 km travelled to arrive at takeoff point.

“That, too, without releasing a molecule of pollutants en route,” he pitches, while taking the wraps of Reva NXR, a four-seater, very finely finished electric car, along with boss, vice-chairman and managing director Anand Mahindra at the auto expo in New Delhi on Friday.

“That’s how we believe we could shape the future of mobility. To enable this, we are already working on integrating a comprehensive eco-system of sustainable mobility solutions, encompassing alternative technologies such as electric, hybrid and fuel cells into our research, development and commercialisation plans,” said Goenka.

There’s no date yet for commercial launch of the vehicle, he added, but it is expected to be sometime “before Diwali.”
Mahindra said his company wants to change the way people travel. “We want to offer them guilt-free commuting.”
But for the EV segment to boom, Goenka said, there is a need to substantially crank up policy tailwind.

“EVs need subsidy — for batteries, motor and controller. The government programme on this front is doing fine. We’re sure the government can do more and, importantly, make EVs affordable,” said Goenka. “Subsidy is essential for the initial momentum.”

Chetan Maini, who sold a chunk of Reva to M&M in May 2010, said the company has spent the last 18 months understanding customer need for an EV. “We’ve done millions of kms absorbing consumer insights,” said the chief of technology and strategy at Mahindra Reva. “We already sell the Reva i 2-seater now. Consumers are ready as long as price, range, speed are reasonable.”

That’s not the way Telang thinks, though, despite the fact that Tata Motors is testing an electric Indica on the roads of Birmingham in England.

“EVs are fine in countries like Norway (the biggest user of electric cars in the world) where there is great support and infrastructure from the government,” he said.

India’s auto leaders are sure charging up — using different ports.