Mahindra inaugurates Rs 100 crore Reva facility

Auto major Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) is aiming at exports to boost sales of their soon-to-be-launched Mahindra Reva NXR electric vehicle. The company admitted that EVs were essential for their global ambitions and also stated that they would enter the European markets in 2013.

Inaugurating the Rs 100-crore EV manufacturing plant and their ‘Future of Mobility’ vision here, the company said that the new plant would manufacture 6,000 cars for now but hoped to reach their maximum capacity of 30,000 vehicles in the next three years. M&M had acquired the Chetan Maini founded Reva Electric Car Company in 2010.

Regarding the exact date of launch of the Mahindra Reva NXR electric car, Chairman and Managing Director of M&M, Anand Mahindra hinted at a pre-Diwali launch which could be the end of September or early October this year.

Terming the lack of encouragement by the government as ‘tragic’, Anand Mahindra said that the government could do much more to help green technologies grow. Admitting that there was a drop in sales of EVs after the subsidy on National Mission for Hybrid and Electric Vehicles was discontinued, Mahindra said that though there was a decrease now, fluctuations in oil prices would bring the demand back for EVs.

Speaking about the high cost factor, the CMD said that battery technology and rupee fluctuations and lack of infrastructure were reasons for high costs. Maini later stated that battery prices were increasing by 8% y-o-y, which had been a matter of concern in the area of cost effective solutions.

On the government’s decision not to deregulate diesel, Mahindra said, “this is a very retrograde step. You cannot compensate for one distortion and create another”.

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