The Tamil Nadu government seeks to attract $6 billion in investments and create 1.5 lakh jobs in the electric vehicle (EV) sector in the next five years as the State projects itself as a global destination for EV manufacturing.

This was indicated by the State Minister for Industries, Investment Promotion and Commerce, TRB Rajaa, during a roundtable discussion on ‘Tamil Nadu: Making of the Next Global EV Manufacturing Hub’ with investors and other stakeholders from the EV industry on Friday.

The State is already at the forefront of attracting investments in EV manufacturing and associated sectors. It is reported to have secured cumulative investments of about ₹43,000 crore in this segment.

EV policy

The new EV policy, the Tamil Nadu Electric Vehicles Policy 2023, with a host of new incentives, was launched with the intent of securing huge investments. “Six cities, including Chennai, Coimbatore, Tiruchirappalli, Madurai, Salem, and Tirunelveli have been earmarked for development as EV hubs,” said Raaja.

“The CEO-Ministerial Round Table is a follow-up since the policy launch in March to enable Tamil Nadu to become a global EV hub,” Vishnu Venugopalan, IAS, MD, and CEO, Guidance, told businessline.

The closed-door meeting, organised by the State Government in partnership with the World Economic Forum (WEF), brought together CEOs, senior leaders from more than 20 major global EV makers, EV component manufacturers, and senior government officials.

“I discussed permits for electric three-wheelers, the development of a charging ecosystem in the State, the manufacturing ecosystem, public-private partnerships for technical skills and collaboration between industry and institutes,” Founder and Chairman of Omega Seiki Mobility, Uday Narang, who attended the roundtable today, told businessline.

Omega Seiki is in talks with the Tamil Nadu government for setting up its electric three-wheeler factory.

Alliance system

Narang said he pointed out the need to have testing and approval facilities like ARAI in Tamil Nadu. When production facilities happen here, products don’t need to go to Pune or other cities for approval. He also suggested an alliance system to build a suppliers’ cluster in the state to cut costs.

“On a pan-India basis, cumulative investments in EVs during 2020-H1 2023 stood at $28.8 billion. Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu emerged as leaders in EV investments, each capturing a 15 per cent share — equivalent to $4.3 billion,” said a recent report of CBRE South Asia Pvt Ltd, a real estate consulting firm.

In the EV manufacturing space, electric two-wheeler manufacturers such as Ola Electric, Ather Energy and Ampere Electric have set up large production units in Tamil Nadu, while Simple Energy has also set up a factory for electric vehicles. Also, TVS Motor Company is manufacturing its electric scooter at its Hosur factory.

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