Top automotive manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra is looking to shift 30 percent of its overall auto manufacturing to electric vehicles (EVs) by financial year 2027 to meet its sustainability goals as well as to stay competitive in the growing EV market, group MD and CEO Anish Shah has said.
The company is already on track to launching about five models of electric SUVs starting December this year, Shah told Moneycontrol on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on January 18.
"We are looking at 30 percent of our entire production to be electric vehicles in the next three-four years by FY27. We are hoping the number will be around 50 percent by FY30. We hope to make a million EVs in India by fiscal 2030," Shah said.
The remarks come at a time when Elon Musk-owned Tesla has said the EV maker is likely to enter India in 2024. Last year, the US-based firm had hinted reconsidering its India investment plans.
Talking about growing competition, Shah said the firm will beat all competitors, including Tesla.
"I believe that we will beat all competitors. We have done that with our current models as well and there have been numerous instances in the past where M&M was written off but we have had great success with models like the Thar, Scorpio, and Bolero... We have got Indian cars today that are the best in the world," he said.
Top players, including Maruti Suzuki, which initially stayed away from launching EVs, have now charted plans to launch at least six models of EV cars by 2030. The EV car market in India is dominated by Tata Motors.
Last year, Mahindra Group, which has businesses across automobiles, technology, financial services, and real estate, undertook a multi-year corporate clean-up.
Shah said that the exercise has been completed and the firm is now poised for 5X growth.
"We have completed our clean-up. We have got our businesses growing at a faster pace. We have set a high bar for our growth scale which is at 5X in the next five-seven years. We have got our businesses geared up for the challenge," he said.
Mahindra Group's AI ambition
Shah said that the firm's IT business arm, Tech Mahindra, is doing a lot of research on artificial intelligence (AI) and is developing a unique AI search engine.
"We have a lot of work planned within AI. Tech Mahindra is overseeing this. We have built our engine that looks at various global engines picks the best out of them and keeps the data secure for Mahindra and that is the path we will be taking," Shah said.
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