Tata Motors emerges as the biggest supplier of electric buses, keen to chase more orders

Tata Motors (Source: MMRDA)

Tata Motors, the country’s biggest manufacturer of commercial vehicles, is keen to chase more orders for electric buses from more states and municipal corporations after emerging as the largest supplier of EV buses for the government.

The Mumbai-based company won orders from six states for supplying 190 electric buses of two different sizes. Tata Motors will supply to the cities of Jaipur, Indore, Lucknow, Kolkata, Jammu and Guwahati.

“Tata Motors is the single largest player to bag maximum contracts. We got 6 out of nine contracts, one contract is in the court. We have delivered first lot of buses to Kolkata but they are not yet pressed into service,” Girish Wagh, president, commercial vehicle business unit told Moneycontrol.

Wagh added that inviting officials from municipal corporations to see the manufacturing process of the electric buses has also helped build the required confidence. Besides buses, Tata Motors is responsible for setting up the charging stations for the vehicles.

“We have been very transparent and have been inviting the corporations to witness the development process of the vehicles. We have taken this intention of the government very seriously. We have created support infrastructure,” Wagh said.

The company is confident of delivering the required lot before the end of first half of next financial year.

Some of the prestigious orders such as that from Mumbai’s BEST undertaking went to Olectra-BYD (formerly Goldstone-BYD), an Indo-Chinese joint venture company.

BYD emerged as the lowest bidder for three contracts cumulatively supplying 290 electric buses to Bengaluru, Mumbai and Hyderabad. However, following no subsidy release from the central government for 130 buses the company is said to be vying for supply of only 160 buses instead.

The Bombay High Court had to intervene and pull up BEST for arbitrarily quashing the contract for sourcing 40 electric buses from Olectra which had already manufactured 24 such buses by then.

When asked if Tata Motors would be looking to grab a piece of pie from other players Wagh said, “We are focussing on delivering what we have won. Quite a few cities are interested in this now and we are chasing those interests, instead of plucking orders from here and there.”

Chennai-based Ashok Leyland bid for only one contract and won it. The company would supply 40 electric buses that will ply in Ahmedabad city. The central government was said to provide subsidy to the tune of 60 percent of the cost of the bus. The size of subsidy range between Rs 75 lakh to Rs 1 crore.