 "Interest for electric vehicles from Tier-II,- III cities surprising: M&M")
The strong interest shown by residents of Tier-II and -III cities in the BE 6e and XEV 9e, Mahindra and Mahindra’s (M&M’s) newly launched premium electric vehicles (EVs), has “surprised” the company, leading it to include the cities in the initial phase of sales.
Rajesh Jejurikar, executive director and chief executive officer (auto and farm sector), told Business Standard in an interview: “We did not expect a wave of demand coming for these two EVs, which are at our price points, from towns such as Tezpur, Kota, and Gulbarga. They are seeing huge demand and all of them want to be in phase one. These are a few anecdotal examples I am giving after a few personal meetings with dealers, who are giving us the feedback from customers.”
“This is the reason why when we open bookings in February, we will open them for most of the towns in India. This was not the strategy earlier,” he noted.
The company was earlier planning to open bookings in Tier-II and -III cities after a gap of a few months, around the middle of this year.
M&M had launched the BE 6e at a starting price of Rs 18.9 lakh (ex-showroom), as well as the XEV 9e, at a starting price of Rs 21.9 lakh (ex-showroom) in November last year. Bookings for these two cars will start in February.
“I think the fear of charging is a little less in Tier-II and -III cities because a lot of people have their own houses, where it is easy to install a charging infrastructure,” Jejurikar noted.
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“Even if they are going out of town, unless it is a very long trip, 200-300 km is a usual distance for them to travel and you still do not have to charge for the whole week. We are seeing the segment expanding into different geographies,” he added.
Jejurikar also said M&M was working with the government regarding the optimal placement of charging infrastructure, financed under the PM E-Drive scheme, along the important highways.
“An input we are giving them is using data from something like mapmyindia.com to see which routes have the highest traffic,” he said.
“The plan that is evolving is to not install one charger at one point. The plan is evolving to create charging zones. So, you take the routes like Delhi-Jaipur or Mumbai-Pune, and you find one or two places, and each such place has 15-25 fast chargers that are well maintained,” he added.
The PM E-drive scheme, which came into effect in October, aims to establish a robust network of public charging stations, including 22,100 fast chargers for electric four wheelers, 1,800 for electric buses, and 48,400 for electric three- and two-wheelers. These charging points will be installed in key cities with high EV penetration and along select highways.
The outlay for charging infrastructure under the scheme is Rs 2,000 crore.