Speaking on the sidelines of the launch of a new electric city smart car e2oPlus in Chennai, Mahesh Babu, chief executive officer, Mahindra Electric, said the company had the capacity to produce 2,000 vehicles last year and had increased the capacity to 5,000 vehicles recently.
“We are expecting we will reach the capacity this year,” said Babu, who declined to share investment details for additional capacity.
The company now has offerings in the personal segment, passenger segment and goods movement and is developing a vehicle for the personal aspirational segment, where BMW and Tesla are present. While declining to provide any timeframe, Babu said it would take at least three years to develop a new vehicle.
Mahindra Electric caters to the compact, sedan and light commercial vehicle segments.
Dharmendra Mishra, vice-president and head of sales, marketing and customer care, Mahindra Electric, added the major hindrances were the vehicle cost and availability of charging points.
The cost of batteries has came down to $300 from $1,000 in the last five years. While the initial cost may be high, if state and central government incentives are added electric vehicle costs can be compared to any other automatic vehicle.
He added the company was setting up battery charging infrastructure in malls, IT parks and other areas.
Babu said the company was working with e-commerce firms to sell its vehicles.
BigBasket uses 50 Mahindra Electric cargo vans and expects to replicate this in others parts of the country.
Mishra added Mahindra Electric cars were positioned as city cars till the infrastructure was in place across the country. The company has sold 7,000 cars in India since it acquired Reva in 2010.
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