There is a strong anti China movement in India and around the world as we speak. Unfortunately many industries in India are dependent on China including our Electric Vehicle Industry.
In this episode of EV guru we show were Indian EV Industry is in terms of localisation and we showcase how many industries are dependent on China. Ultimately we speak about taking the pragmatic approach for our Indian EV Industry.
Video : Atmanirbhar Bharat, Electric Vehicles And China | EV Guru
Introduction In this episode of EV Guru we will talk about
Where the Indian EV Industry is, in terms of localization.
What are components of an EV and which components have a dependency on China and which components can be made in India. You will be surprised, most components in Electric Vehicles CAN be made in India today.
We will talk about Chinese companies investing in India and selling vehicles.
We will also speak about how multiple industries are dependent on China much more than the Indian EV industry.
At the end we will talk about taking the pragmatic approach, which is the right way going forward, if we want our EV industry to grow and get more businesses and people to move away from consuming petrol and diesel and switch to electric.
EV manufacturers - Where they are in terms of localisation? Let’s talk about electric cars
Mahindra Electric has their very successful eVerito electric car and this car is majorly engineered in India with the help of the Reva Electric Car company who they purchased in 2010. We know for a fact that they make the Lithium Iron Phosphate battery packs in house and many of the electronic components like motor controller, onboard charger are made by Indian companies. The upcoming eKUV is going to be launched soon and we are sure this will be a highly localized product.
Tata Motors unveiled their electric car vision with multiple Tata companies like Tata Power, Tata AutoComponents, Tata Chemicals and more Tata companies coming together to support the EV Ecosystem.
Hyundai Kona and MG Motors have launched electric cars in limited numbers. They are getting CKD kits from Korea and China respectively. We feel their main focus is to sell pollution cars in India and they have launched Electric Cars for branding only.
Let’s talk about electric buses. The 3 biggest players here are
Olectra Greentech Ltd They are a partnership with an Indian company and world's biggest Chinese electric bus manufacturer BYD
PMI Electro Mobility Solutions They are a partnership with an Indian company and another large Chinese electric bus manufacturer Foton
Our very own Tata Motors Who recently bagged the largest electric bus order of 300 buses Ahmedabad Janmarg Limited.
We came to know that 3 players have heavily localized their buses with Made in India components as they need to get FAME 2 subsidy. The subsidy is available only if manufacturers localize certain key components. Let’s talk about the biggest segment - the e-Rickshaw segments
There is a large unorganised sector with multiple manufacturers selling eRickshaws.
We got to know that many of these companies who sell e-Rickshaws get the entire body from China. The body of the e-Rickshaw includes Shockers, wheels, chassis, suspension etc. Generally these Chinese bodies have smaller wheelbase, lower ground clearance - not made for Indian roads.
Then we have the electrical components like lights, wire harness, controllers etc. These also are from China.
Then we have Motor which is 100% from China
The lead acid batteries used are 100% Made in India.
We have large players in the eRickshaw business like
Kinetic Green, Exide, Mahindra, Thukral
These large players have service centers pan India. They import only motor, rest everything is Made in India. These players sell heavily localized eRickshaws.
We feel the electric rickshaw industry will ultimately get consolidated. These large companies with their resources have already localized upto 90% and with other large players like Bajaj, TVS launching eRickshaws we will see further consolidation and more Indian made eRickshaws in the market. The electric auto market is still a small one.
We already have a Mahindra Treo lithium ion based eAuto that is doing well. We know that the Mahindra electric Treo team has worked very hard to make this a majorly Made in India product as most components are made in India.
We also know Bajaj are launching an e-Auto in few months which is also majorly made in India product.
Lets talk about the charging stations market
Regarding charging stations, we spoke to some industry insiders and they said that AC charging stations are totally possible to make in India as most components are available in India.
Regarding DC fast chargers there are some components which are imported.
Some big players in India are Delta which is a Taiwanese company, Siemens and EO are importing chargers from Europe and Indian companies like Masstech, Exicom, OnePlug, BrightBlu are making Indian charging stations.
Let’s talk about the market which has largest potential. Electric scooters.
Back in 2015-16, most electric scooter companies were 100% importing CKD kits usually from China. But that situation has improved a lot now. With stricter regulation and FAME 2 policy changes many of these companies have been forced to localise their operations.
Big electric scooter names like Hero Electric, Okinawa, Ampere have started localizing and around 50%-60% of their operations are localized especially in their FAME 2 compliant scooters.
Ather Energy, Tork Motors, Ultraviolet are few startups who make the majority of their own components and have vertical integration in the manufacturing processes.
Progressive smaller scooter startups like PureEV, NDS Eco, Batt:Re are moving towards localizing 80% upto localization by the end of 2020.
Our observation is that many of these large scooter companies are putting lots of effort towards making in India in high speed variants as they want to get the FAME 2 subsidy. But they dont seem to care about low speed variants localization. For example Hero Electric sells Hero Photon with the Made in India battery pack from Trontek. But sells Hero Dash which is a low speed scooter with an imported Guoxuan battery. Then we have many smaller companies - regional players who are still selling CKDs from China as they only sell low speed scooters there is no mandate for these companies to localize. Our wish for FAME 3 would be to target low speed scooters which will encourage these companies to localize more. But overall we at PluginIndia are happy with the way the electric scooter industry is working towards localization. There is more work to be done but we are confident of seeing a 90% Made In India electric scooter by this year end.
