26 Oct 2021
MUMBAI: Tata Motors will spend as much as $2 billion (Rs 15,000 crore) over the next four years to start 10 new electric vehicles just as its broader customer vehicles division — which was in losses till a few years ago — hopes to turn around and generate free cash flow by 2022-23, a top official has announced.
The move comes within days of private equity firm TPG Rise Climate publishing plans to pump in $1 billion into Tata Motors’s customer electric vehicles division at a valuation of $9.1 billion.
Shailesh Chandra, president of Tata Motors’s customer vehicles business unit, announced the company has a strong product launch plan for electrics, with expectations of 20% sales beginning from green powertrains over four to five years.
With just two green outcomes right now (Nexon and Tigor EVs), we are getting bookings of 3,000-3,500 units per month. However, we can provide only around 1,000 units. So we are now lining up new properties to the tune of $2 billion just for electrics, and this would be used to add 10 new green vehicles, boost increasing capacity and charging foundation, and create IP (intellectual property),” Chandra told TOI here.
In September, the company had said that cumulative sales of electrics had crossed 10,000 units, with the main addition coming from Nexon.
It recently started an upgraded Tigor electric sedan. It hopes that demand for EVs will remain strong as central and state authorities offer benefits to support green technologies and the vehicle carrying network gets dense.
While it remains tight-lipped about future stock plans, the company is understood to electrify some of its existing petrol/diesel products, including the Astros hatchback and the newly launched Punch mini SUV.
Chandra said 10 new customer vehicles would be a mix of cars and SUVs. Asked whether these would also include all-new ‘electric only’ products, he replied, “This will surely add the ‘born electric’ products, which would be completely developed EVs.”
Tata Motors has also seen a rush in sales of its broader customer vehicles market, with good interest for models such as Nexon SUV, Tiago and Altros SUVs, and added off-roaders Harrier and Safari.
Notwithstanding increasing constraints due to semiconductor shortages, the company has equated monthly sales of around 30,000 units over the earlier few months. In addition, Chandra announced that the Punch — a mass-selling stock — will further strong inflows into its domestic volumes.
It is assumed that with Punch, Tata Motors’s monthly volumes may cross 40,000 units, almost questioning Hyundai’s position as the second-largest car seller in India. “We are not chasing ranks. We are fully concentrated on our products and their success.”
He announced that a larger share of SUVs into the company’s portfolio, which could go up to 60% in the advancing years, will aid profitability.
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