Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd has a fresh target for the year. Considering the increasing dependence on fossil fuels and its consequent impact on country’s import bills, the company aims to sell over 1,00,000 units of electric passengers vehicles over the next 2-3 years. It is currently pushing efforts to initiate sales by the next year itself.
These electric passenger vehicles include buses, trucks, cargo vehicles among others. Mahindra will infuse big electric powertrains within these vehicles with the assistance of its electric mobility division known as the Reva Electric Car Company. The company’s flagship vehicle, the REVAi electric car, available in 26 countries with more than 4,000 of its different versions has been sold worldwide. The target for the next 2-3 years seems to be far enough considering the huge gap in the figures.
In talks with Bloomberg, Mahesh Babu, chief executive officer (CEO) at Mahindra Reva Electric Vehicles Ltd, said,
There’s a huge demand for mass-mobility transport solutions in India as the ministry of transportation and pollution control board are keen to have clean-energy vehicles plying on the roads, The prime challenge is related to charging infrastructure as there is no policy.
Moreover, SsangYong Motor Company in collaboration with Mahindra are together working on an electric vehicle using the same platform that can target large emerging electric car markets including China. For those of you unaware, SsangYong Motor Company is the fourth largest South Korea-based automobile manufacturer and is a subsidiary of Mahindra & Mahindra Limited.
Apart from progressing in the field of electric mobility, the company is also contributing its bit towards autonomous driving. Students from various institutions such as IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur and IIT Bombay, among the many others are competing for the Rise Prize by Mahindra. The Rise Prize gives a chance for two teams to win a bounty of $1 mn in prize money for two projects, the Solar Challenge and the Driverless Car Challenge.
Students at their various institutions have already been testing what they think is the ideal technology for tackling Indian roads. The Mahindra Group’s Driverless Car Challenge involves thirty-one shortlisted teams that must build a driverless car that will work not for the civilised Western roads, but the rather tricky Indian traffic scenarios.
