Mahindra is the only company in India currently to manufacture electric cars and though the sales might not be great, the company has been sticking it out and making it work. Currently the sale of the company reflects that we Indians are in no hurry to buy electric cars. I said that, because in the first 7 months of the current financial year, Mahindra has managed to sell 600 odd electric cars and that's quite good considering that the company manufactures 100 of them every month. But the demand is about to go up and Mahindra wants to be the first one in that segment to offer as many choices as it possibly can, which is why it announced that there'll be two electric vehicles that will be launched in India by 2019.
(Mahindra e2OPlus)Dr. Pawan Goenka, Managing Director, Mahindra & Mahindra said, "Our first new electric car will come by 2018 and the second one will be launched by the end of 2019 and we are very excited for both."
He went on to state that the two cars will be based on current models but did not give out any more details on this front. However, we got to know that the company will be investing up to Rs. 600 crore spread across three years to build these cars. We expect both the cars to be exported from India but this clearly is a step in the right direction. This will of course mean that the company will ramp up production too at its plant in Bengaluru.
(The Mahindra KUV100 NXT might get an electric drivetrain as well)Currently, the company manufactures 100 EVs a day and production capacity will be ramped up to 1,000 cars per month in the next six months and Mahindra has plans to further push the production mark to 5,000 units by 2019. While it's too early to say which cars will get the electric drive, the KUV100 is a likely candidate. We might get a glimpse of the company's plan at the 2018 Auto Expo and we wait to know more.
