Maharashtra is receiving big investments from Electric Vehicle (EV) manufacturers, says P Anbalagan, CEO, Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC). He was speaking at the ‘Enhancing EV production in India’ session during the two-day conference organised as a part of the Pune Alternate Fuel Conclave (Pune AFC). Automotive industry experts have also opined that by 2025, EV penetration in the country will be around 25 to 30 per cent.

Alternate fuel conference

The second day of the alternate fuel conference witnessed good response from various stakeholders of the EV ecosystem including government officials, automotive industry representatives and EV experts. Maharashtra Environment Minister Aaditya Thackeray was also present for the session.

Anbalagan informed that MIDC is granting mega project status for investments of ₹100 crore, which is 15 times less than the traditional investment of ₹1,500 crore. MIDC is allotting land on priority, and setting up an EV vendor park in Talegaon. Also, 2,500 charging points infrastructure will be built in seven cities and the Samruddhi Mahamarg and Pune-Mumbai Expressway. A 300MW solar park is also proposed on a 10,000 acre land in near future.

Girish Wagh, Executive Director, Tata Motors said, “ The demand creation is still a bottleneck in EV adoption. We have achieved cost parity of EVs with Internal Combustion (IC) engine vehicles. By 2030, we would see more than 25 per cent penetration of EVs happening in the country.”

Diego Graffi, MD and CEO, Piaggio Vehicles India Pvt Ltd said, “More localisation of components will happen in the near future, and we will see 25 to 30 per cent penetration of EVs in the next 3 to 5 years.”

Balbir Singh Dhillon, Head of Audi India; Sulajja Firodia-Motwani said that Audi has set a global target of becoming an entirely EV manufacturing company. “We expect 15 per cent of our sales to be of EV by 2025” he said.

Sulajja Firodia-Motwani, Vice Chairperson, Kinetic Engineering Limited “Local supply chain have to gear up in capacity. We anticipate that in the next 10 years we will have at least 40 to 50 per cent EV penetration, although infrastructure needs to be built rapidly.”

Prashant Girbane, Director General, Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA) moderated the session.

Financing India’s e-Mobility transition

 Banking industry experts and officials participated in the second session titled ‘Financing India’s e-Mobility Transition’.

Sameer Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, RevFin said “There is huge demand for EVs in tier 2 and 3 cities, however, underwriting for these customers is a challenge. We are using digital technologies to analyse the intention to pay and other parameters for lending to customers.”

Anish Shah, MD Mahindra and Mahindra said, “ We need to invest in new technology to become carbon neutral. Mahindra group always led with purpose and we believe in being planet positive and we have completed 2000 projects in last 15 years.

The Pune AFC is an initiative of Government of Maharashtra, MIDC, Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) in association with Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA). India’s largest EV exhibition and EV rally was conducted during the conclave.

Published on April 6, 2022