No new EV facility planned beyond Chakan plant: Mahindra & Mahindra

Company will roll out Born EVs from Chakan plant by 2025

SUV maker Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), which enjoys a 21.6 per cent revenue market share in the segment, is progressing with its upcoming electric vehicle (EV) and EV battery manufacturing plant in Chakan. The auto major ruled out plans to set up another facility to house its new EV architecture.

Kerala industries minister P Rajeeve told Business Standard last month that M&M officials would meet them soon. The state is in talks with EV players to set up manufacturing facilities. Earlier in August, a Reuters report suggested that M&M and China’s Shaanxi had agreed to form a $3 billion joint venture for building a car manufacturing plant in Gujarat, pending approval from New Delhi. However, M&M later clarified that the report was unfounded.

Recent reports have also claimed that the company is scouting for land in Maharashtra – near Shirur, Ahmednagar, and Chakan for another Greenfield plant that will make vehicles on a multi-energy platform, the New Flexible Architecture (NFA). 

Rajesh Jejurikar, Executive Director and CEO, Auto and Farm Sector, Mahindra and Mahindra told Business Standard, “Our EV facilities are coming up in Chakan Maharashtra for the battery plant and for our Born electric vehicles.  No new EV facility is planned beyond this facility". 

M&M is eyeing 30 per cent EV penetration in its portfolio by 2030 and will start rolling out five EVs under the INGLO EV platform.

Last January, it got a nod from the Maharashtra government to set up a Rs 10,000 crore EV plant in Chakan, with the investment spread over the next 7-8 years. By 2029, the Chakan facility is expected to produce 200,000 units per year. 

M&M is eyeing an overall capacity of 1 million vehicles a year by 2030. Currently, it has a capacity of 800,000 units per year. The company has said it is on track to expand its SUV production capacity from 49,000 per month (at the end of FY24) to 64,000 per month at the end of FY25, which will further increase to 72,000 units per month by the end of FY26. This will bring the overall capacity to 864,000 units by the end of FY26.

The INGLO vehicle portfolio would need this additional capacity.

Analysts feel M&M will need more capacity for the NFA platform. At Chakan, the company is looking at 200,000 units per annum, an analyst said, adding that the first product under the Born-EV range will hit the market by 2025. The legacy brands will come under the XUV name (M&M has XUV400 EV now), and all new EVs will fall under the BE lineage.

M&M - which is readying to launch nine SUVs (internal combustion engine), seven Born electric vehicles (BEVs), and seven light commercial vehicles by 2030 - has outlined an investment of Rs 27000 crore in its auto business between FY25 and FY27. The M&M board has approved an investment of Rs 12,000 crore in its EV arm Mahindra Electric Automobile (MEAL) to fund the EV journey over the next three years. The first set of born EVs will start rolling out in the first quarter of the 2025 calendar year.

The analyst quoted above said that the new platforms would need more capacity and that it is possible the company would require another greenfield plant, whether in Kerala, Maharashtra, or any other state.

If the partnership talks with the European major Volkswagen Group succeed, it could potentially add more capacities at Chakan, where the Skoda Volkswagen Group has a plant.

Mahindra Group forms AI division 
 

Mahindra Group has created a focused division on artificial intelligence (AI) to help firms in the conglomerate benefit from new-age technologies, a senior official has said. The idea is to consolidate all the work on AI in a single office to benefit all the busine­sses, Bhuwan Lodha, chief of the newly created division, told PTI. “We have set up at a group level... we have set up an AI division, which is tasked to make our businesses succe­ss­ful with AI,” Lodha said. To start with, the division is drawing talent specialising in AI from all the group firms, Lodha added. PTI

>M&M board approved investment of Rs 12,000 cr in its EV arm MEAL to fund its EV journey over the next three years

>The first set of Born EVs will start rolling out in the first quarter of the 2025 calendar year

> 1 million per annum production target by 2030 

> 30% EV penetration in portfolio by 2030

> Apart from Inglo, new multi-energy platforms on the horizon