Leading electric vehicle manufacturer, Omega Seiki Mobility has established two electric vehicle factories at an investment of $100 million each in South India and the company is currently in talks with three States including Tamil Nadu.
The company already operates EV factories at Faridabad and Chakan in Pune.
The proposal to set up new factories in the South has been prompted by the growth potential in the southern market and also the prospect of logistics cost optimization.
“We are looking to set up a mega EV production unit here for electric three-wheelers and a new factory for electric commercial vehicles in this region. We are in talks with both Tamil Nadu and Karnataka governments. We have also looked at Andhra Pradesh,” said Uday Narang, Founder and Chairman of Omega Seiki Mobility, which is part of the Anglian Omega Group.
The group has been engaged in the manufacture and export of steel and auto parts over the past 5 decades.
The New Delhi-based company is also exploring the possibility of setting up an integrated facility for electric three-wheelers and electric trucks in one location.
Narang says the South is an important market for the electric three-wheeler passenger segment—one of the company’s key focus areas.
OSM seeks to focus on Tier 2, 3 and 4 markets for electric cargo and passenger three-wheelers as its strategic vision is to take the EV revolution to the masses and play in niche areas. “We want to focus on small towns and rural locations in the Southern States and, Haryana and Punjab among others with a wide range of niche products,” he added.
For instance, the company has introduced electric 3W—meals on wheelers—for mobile kitchen businesses, targeted at people in small towns.
In electric two-wheelers too, its focus will be on the B2B segment. “Electric B2C two-wheeler market is too-crowded and it doesn’t make sense to be one more player in that,” he added.
It will soon be launching its first electric 4-wheeled small truck with a range of about 180 km (on a single charge). This will come in the 1-tonne load category (which is dominated by Tata Ace).
“To fund our expansion, we are in the process of raising about $100 million—by a mix of equity and debt,” said Narang, who spent 30 years in the US and Europe before founding the company in 2016. This will be its first fundraiser since the commencement of the operation.
OSM sold about 5,100 electric three-wheelers in FY2023 and plans to sell about 25,000 units, including 13,000 electric passenger 3Ws and 12,000 electric cargo 3Ws in FY24.
It will also double its current dealership number of 150 by the end of this calendar year. Its revenue is estimated at ₹200 crores for FY23, up from ₹56 crore in FY22. “Our target is to touch ₹500 crore by the end of this fiscal,” he said.
The company has a joint venture with iM3NY, a US-based lithium-ion cell manufacturer that runs a Gigafactory, to bring battery cell technology into the Indian market.
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