M&M didn't consider us rival, but made loudest outcry on EESL

Tata Motors, which pipped Mahindra to bag majority of electric vehicle (EV) supplies to state- owned EESL, said today that its homegrown rival did not consider it as competitor but made the loudest outcry.
Tata Motors had last year bagged a tender for supplying 10,000 electric vehicles to Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) at Rs 11.2 lakh each, inclusive of the GST and a five- year warranty.
On the other hand, Mahindra's offer was at over Rs 13 lakh but it later on matched the bid by Tata Motors.
Subsequently, in the first phase EESL decided to take deliveries of 350 units from Tata Motors and 150 units from Mahindra, which said price quoted by its rival was "hard to comprehend".

"When we became L1 (winner) in the EESL tender (at the) end of September last year with our Tigor EV, there was almost an outcry in the industry, how is it possible that Tata Motors which was on nobody's radar screen for electrification became L1," Tata Motors Tata Motors CEO and MD Guenter Butschek said at a media interaction here.
He further said, "The loudest outcry was coming from our competition, who did not take us as a competitor into consideration."

Explaining why Tata Motors was able to come up with such a competitive pricing, Butschek said: "We have a wide range of smart mobility solutions...we have been consistently investing into this technology in India and also in our engineering centre in the UK."

The company has been participating in all kinds of studies in this context, he added.
Tata Motors has a wide range of capability in smart energy solutions ranging from hybrid solutions for buses to fuel cells and full electric in busses and passenger vehicles.
Butschek also said Tata Motors has started deliveries of its Tigor EV as part of the EESL order and expects to complete it in the coming weeks.