Tata Motors Chairman, Natrajan Chandrasekaran, has recently revealed company’s target of running 50% of Tata Motors passenger vehicles and 65% of JLR vehicles on green technology by 2030.
Chandrasekaran said the company has extensive product launch plans for the passenger vehicle business as well as Jaguar Land Rover.
Tata Motors has committed over US$2 billion for Tata Motors Passenger Electric Mobility and another 15 billion pounds on JLR for capex in the next five years, which will go towards a clean vehicle portfolio.
Elucidating the product launch plans, Chandrasekaran informed that the company will be launching four new electric vehicles for Tata Motors PV business within the next few quarters to build its electric vehicle portfolio. It will start taking bookings for the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport EVs this October, before all the new Jaguar EVs hit the roads in 2025.
Addressing the shareholders at the 78th AGM, Chandrasekaran said, “Tata Motors India, as well as JLR have extensive plans on EV. We have launched a number of products already. We have a new upgraded Nexon which will be launched any time this year we will be launching the Harrier, Punch, then we are launching Curvv towards the first quarter next year.”
He also assured that there is a strong portfolio of EVs planned for JLR and it will start taking orders for Range Rover from October.
On the possible penetration of EVs, Chandrasekaran added, “We believe that Tata Motors India passenger vehicles will have 50% of electric vehicles penetration and 65% of JLR vehicles by 2030 on green technology.”
On the battery front, Chandrasekaran mentioned that Tata Agratas, a part of Tata Sons will support JLR and Tata Motors’ batteries requirements.
“We will have the right technology and form factor, I can assure you that it will be a significant differentiator for our company,” added Chandrasekaran.
On the charging infrastructure, Chandrasekaran says the company has a partnership with Tata Power, and the focus is to continue to expand the footprint to support EV penetration.
On the localization of EVs, the chairman said that the company continues to work with Tata AutoComp and other vendors to increase localisation levels on EVs.
He however cautioned that while the EV penetration will rise, the internal combustion engine is not going to go away in a hurry, it will take time.
With the market leader Maruti Suzuki along with its global alliance partner committing to hybrid technology, Tata Motors reiterated that it has no plans of getting into hybrid powertrain and its entire focus is on EVs for passenger vehicles and hydrogen powered vehicles for commercial vehicles.
Tata Motors had earlier announced that it has plans of having a portfolio of 10 EVs by 2025-26.
This financial year, the company has set a target of 1 lakh vehicles. In the first quarter of FY24, the company had sold about 19,000 units and its Group CFO P B Balaji had said, the company is on path to achieve 1 lakh unit volumes.
On the EV waste disposal, new businesses will emerge and Tata Motors is engaged in this area from thought leadership level, Chandrasekaran said.