Mahindra wants to do an Elon Musk for commercial vehicles

While Google and Tesla founder Elon Musk have made huge strides into making driver-less passenger cars a reality, India’s own billionaire entrepreneur Anand Mahindra seems all geared up to take the lead in developing autonomous commercial vehicles, including driver-less tractors.

Adressing shareholders at the company’s 70th Annual General Meeting (AGM), Mahindra said, “Tractors that operate autonomously could change the future of food production. This is an area where Mahindra, as the largest tractor producer in the world, intends to play a pioneering role.”

Mahindra, the Chairman and Managing Director at Mahindra Group, said the most fertile ground for autonomy is in agricultural tractors. Stating this has not been emphasised enough globally, he added that the paranoia about accidents and collisions is virtually non-existent.

“This is an area where productivity increases are sorely needed to feed the growing needs of the world,” Mahindra said without providing further details.

Globally, M&M is the largest producer of tractors, with the US-based John Deere in second place.

Highlighting that autonomous technology is closer than imagined, Mahindra also told shareholders that the talk and speculation about driver-less vehicles have also accelerated.

“At our management board meetings, I have stressed, in the recent past, that using the strength of our telematics skills in the larger Mahindra Group, we must focus strongly on developing driver-less commercial vehicles. Elon Musk’s recent new plans support that approach,” he added.

In December last year, Elon Musk, CEO and co-founder of all-electric sedan manufacturer Tesla Motors, had said his company is two years away from making driver-less cars.

Overall, M&M as a group has earmarked ₹7,500 crore as capital expenditure and another ₹2,500 crore in investments over the next three years, Mahindra, said in reply to a shareholder’s query, but did not elaborate. The company is also planning for one new launch a year between 2017 and 2020, he said, adding that the company has a turnaround plans for two-wheelers.

“We are restructuring it to focus more on a niche area. We are looking at how do we present our products in a space where there is lower volume perhaps, but higher realisations and greater brand affinity,” he said.

On SsangYong Motor Company, the South Korean automobile manufacturer owned by M&M, he said that the company had made profits in the last three quarters and is expected to make a profit this year.

“SsangYong has done extremely well,” he said.

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