TVS Motor Company announced that it has committed Rs 1,000 crore to manufacture electric vehicles under a separate vertical. This was said by Sudarshan Venu, the company’s joint managing director, in an exclusive interview with ET Auto.
He said – “We’ve quietly worked on EVs for the last ONE decade. It is a huge focus area for us as we advance. We are embracing this future; we are investing in it and are excited. We want to scale up the TVS electric experience pan India, and it is a space where we would like to play a leading role.”
He also said – “We are improving the profitability of our core business and cutting any capex on non-core areas to keep the focus on electrification and digital future. We should see very rapid growth from here on. While the total cost of ownership parity is still some time away, in the three to five years, you will see significant growth in the industry; that is why we are investing.”
The company’s new EV vertical is working on various concepts to meet market needs and has 500-600 engineers working for it. This new range of electric vehicles, designed and developed in India with a global R&D ecosystem, aims to serve to the foreign markets too.
As a first step, TVS’s first EV offering, iQube, currently sold in Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi and Pune, will be available across 1,000 dealerships in major towns and cities by the end of the FY22. Around the same time, the company will also launch its scooter based on the Creon concept–which TVS claims will be the most advanced electric two wheelers in India.
