Greaves Cotton stock spurts 7% after arm opens EV production facility in TN

Spread in 35 acre, the plant is located in the industrial centre of Tamil Nadu and will serve as an e-mobility hub for both domestic and export markets

Greaves Cotton rose 7.29% to Rs 156 after the company said its e-mobility arm opened its largest EV production facility in Ranipet, Tamil Nadu.

Greaves Electric Mobility, the e-mobility arm of Greaves Cotton and one of the market leaders in the E-2W and E-3W segments, inaugurated its largest EV production facility in Ranipet, Tamil Nadu. The 35-acre plant located in the Industrial Centre of Tamil Nadu, will serve as an electric mobility hub for both domestic and export markets.

The plant is part of the Rs 700 crore investment roadmap announced by the company to expand its growing share in the Indian electric vehicle market.

The facility was inaugurated by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin and the state's Minister for Industries, Thangam Thenarasu.

The company currently enjoys the fastest growing market share in a keenly contested electric mobility segment. The new manufacturing plant is also in accordance with flagship initiatives of the government such as Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat to promote indigenous capabilities in manufacturing.

"Through Greaves Electric Mobility, we are solving real-world mobility challenges of common Indians. Therefore, not surprisingly our e-mobility business has seen over 48 prer cent growth from H1 FY21 to H1 FY22," Nagesh Basavanhalli, MD and Group CEO, Greaves Cotton told PTI.

"Interestingly, 40 per cent of our sales is through referrals, indicating a strong word-of-mouth patronage of the brand. This is the strength of our brand that is allowing us to aim big in the e-mobility space as we go about creating technically sound and comfortable-to-ride electric 2Ws at a scale that puts us in the forefront of the Indian EV revolution," Basavanhalli said.

He further noted that "this EV mega site will help us meet the rising needs of discerning customers and fleet purchasers in the last-mile mobility market as we expand our capacities to produce a million EVs a year in future." This plant will also allow the company to nurture a highly skilled workforce and generate employment for the local community including women who form 70 per cent of the plant's workforce, he added.

The new manufacturing plant is also in accordance with the central government's flagship initiatives such as "Make-in-India" and "Atmanirbhar Bharat" to promote indigenous capabilities in manufacturing, the company said.

"Tamil Nadu has now become the destination of choice for EV manufacturers. With a host of companies across the EV supply chain located here and in the process of setting up their operations, the state has emerged as the EV capital of India," said Pooja Kulkarni, MD and CEO, Guidance Tamil Nadu, which is state's nodal agency for investment promotion single window facilitation.

The Ranipet plant will have capacity to produce 120,000 units by end of this fiscal year and gradually ramp up to 1 million units in near future. The company has robust workforce that has been a hallmark of the brand since its earliest days. The facility will be operational with 70% women in the workforce.

Greaves Electric's ambitious goal of #MovingBillionsWithGreaves is encouraging EV adoption in the country. By catering to both B2C and B2B domains, the business is supporting the entire ecosystem with continual last-mile mobility of people, commodities, and services. Greaves Electric Mobility has a robust retail and after-sales network with 7,000-plus touchpoints, 12,000 associate mechanics and a dedicated on-call support team to facilitate the consumers to make this transition smoothly. Furthermore, in the month of October, the company sold over 7,500 units.

On a consolidated basis, Greaves Cotton reported net loss of Rs 23.29 crore in Q2 September 2021, higher than net loss of Rs 22.49 crore in Q2 September 2020. Net sales rose 13.40% to Rs 373.51 crore in Q2 September 2021 over Q2 September 2020.

Greaves Cotton is a diversified engineering company and a leading manufacturer of cleantech powertrain solutions (CNG, petrol and diesel engines), generator sets, farm equipment, e-mobility, aftermarket spares and services.