The constantly increasing fuel prices are giving another solid reason to adopt electric vehicles. Though this doesn’t undermine the environmental benefits, however, Indian consumers generally tend to see the immediate impact. And coupled with an increase in awareness, EVS for sure will rule the roads once again.
Automaker Mahindra and Mahindra is also gung-ho about the future of mobility and is ready with its electric vehicle blueprint. The company while revealing its financial results shared the plan suggesting how the company is looking to gradually go electric.
Rajesh Jejurikar, Executive Director – Auto and Farm Sectors, Mahindra and Mahindra, said that the company aims to launch 9 different vehicles by 2026, out of which 6 will be hybrid/electric. The company is also working on 2 new products based on the Born EV platform which is its dedicated architecture for e-SUVs.
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While not much is known about these two SUVs as of now, however, reports suggest that these will build ground up and will not be based on any existing model from Mahindra. These fully electric vehicles are codenamed Born EV1 and Born EV 2 and are scheduled for a launch in 2025-26. It is expected that Mahindra will use the Mahindra Electric Scalable Modular Architecture (MESMA), showcased at the 2020 Auto Expo, range of battery packs in these cars.
Before going into an all-electric mode, Mahindra and Mahindra will also come up with four hybrid SUVs namely - XUV300, XUV700, W620 and the V201. These vehicles will pave the way for all-electric vehicles and will compete with the current generation cars like Tata Nexon Electric, MG ZS EV and Hyundai Kona.
The company has announced that it will invest over Rs. 17,000 in the next three years and out of this Rs. 3000 has been earmarked for the development of electric vehicles. This does suggest that the company’s primary focus will remain on the ICE vehicles while the EV market will still take a few years to mature.
In a related piece of news, the US automaker Tesla is moving ahead with its India plans and it was reported that the company had already hired executives in the country and is also scouting for places for its showrooms in the country.
That being said the Indian government had to backtrack after the initial push of its target of going all-electric by 2030, which had derailed the Indian EV dream. However, momentary hiccups aside, the federal government are keeping a positive outlook towards green vehicles.
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