Faced With The EV Coundrum, India's Auto Suppliers Are Investing In Electric, Too

Faced with the EV conundrum, India’s auto suppliers have devised a dual strategy: Without compromising on their money-making ICE product lines, they are getting a foot in the door by investing in electric too

- Prerna Lidhoo

THE 2006 DOCUMENTARY Who killed the electric car? delves into the reasons behind the fall of General Motors’ EV1 a few years after its launch in 1996. Wally Rippel, one of the electric vehicle’s (EV) designers, pinned the blame on Big Oil’s fear of losing their monopoly on transportation fuel. Auto companies were also worried, he continued, about EV development costs in the short term and revenue loss in the longer term as EVs require little to no maintenance. Just 1,100-odd EV1s hit the road before the programme was shelved in 2003.

The EV revolution lay in limbo until Tesla picked up the baton with the launch of the Roadster in 2008. A little over a decade later, Tesla’s Model 3 became the bestselling EV of all time, having retailed 6.4 lakh units until August last year. The world is now on the cusp of mass EV adoption. But Rippel’s concerns still hold true, especially in India, the fourth-largest auto market in the world.

“It is not going to be a total disruption. For at least 10 years, ICE (internal combustion engine) is not going to disappear,” Nirmal K. Minda, Chairman and Managing Director, UNO Minda Group, says bluntly. The numbers bear that out. India’s EV component market was worth around $536 million in 2019, according to market research firm P&S Intelligence, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 22.1 per cent between 2020 and 2030. This, companies say, will come on the back of both ICE vehicles and EVs.