If 4,000 workers could work round the clock for the construction of the new Parliament building, then there is no reason why all infrastructure projects too cannot follow that model, asserts Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Making it clear that relaxations will not be provided to US-based electric vehicles major Tesla unless it participates in manufacturing activities in India, Union Minister Krishan Pal Gurjar on Tuesday said there cannot be a situation where the market is India but jobs are created in China. The minister of state for heavy industries also told the Lok Sabha during Question Hour that the company is yet to apply for schemes as per the government's policy. Last year, the Elon Musk-led company sought a reduction in import duties on electric vehicles (EVs) in India but the Ministry of Heavy Industries asked the firm to start manufacturing its iconic EVs in the country before any tax concessions can be considered.
Auto industry volumes have grown by 2.5 per cent overall, led by domestic sales of three-wheelers, two-wheelers and passenger vehicles (PVs) in the first quarter of this financial year. Analysts predict an 18 per cent growth in revenues for automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and profit growth of 69 per cent year-on-year (YoY). However, on a sequential basis, a decline in revenues as well as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) margins is expected.
Retail sales of overall vehicles in India grew by 15.28 per cent to 2,11,20,441 units in 2022 led by record sales of passenger vehicles and tractors, Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) said on Thursday. In 2021, total retail sales of vehicles in India were at 1,83,21,760 units, FADA said in a statement. Two-wheelers retail sales stood at 1,53,88,062 units last year, a growth of 13.37 per cent from 2021 when sales stood at 1,35,73,682 units.
India's traditional companies are now moving full scale into the renewable and alternative energy space that had been dominated by smaller players over the past decade. Companies such as government-owned NTPC and the Adani and the Tata groups restructured their businesses well in time to become major players in the green space. At the same time, other conventional companies, such as Larsen & Toubro and Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), which have a presence both in the energy sector as well as myriad other activities - construction, technology and retailing - are tying up with new-age companies to hitch a ride to a greener path.
Ford, which had announced to quit the Indian market last year, said it was exploring the possibility of using one of its plants in India to produce electric cars for exports.
According to research by IHS Markit, for an ecosystem still grappling with infrastructure issues -- the high cost of EVs and a greater OEM (original equipment manufacturer) focus on electrifying two-wheelers and commercial vehicles first -- the share of such vehicles is expected to be 4 per cent by 2030, reports Pavan Lall.
The entry of SoftBank-backed Ola into the electric scooter (e-scooter) segment is set to power up the overall market and perhaps fast-track the adoption of battery-operated vehicles. But for manufacturers of internal combustion engine (ICE)-powered two-wheelers, such as Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp, and TVS Motor, it will be a double whammy. Not only will they have to contend with the aggressive pricing of Ola's scooter and incur a loss at each unit of the e-scooter sold, the volumes of their regular (ICE) models, too, could feel the squeeze, observed analysts. Ola is expected to price its e-scooter in the range of Rs 85,000-1.1 lakh.
US President Joe Biden visited the Detroit Auto Show to highlight electric vehicle manufacturing in America.
'Since we have a long waiting period, customers will be able to see cars for the next one year which are going to be produced and block (book) them.' 'So, if there is a wedding or a birthday in October, they can already check its availability in that month and block it.'
The Karnataka government issued orders to implement the 'Gruha Jyoti' and 'Shakti' schemes.
In a fragmented electric three-wheeler market where no company has more than a 10 per cent share, leave alone a dominant presence, can Bajaj Auto storm in and become king? The company is set to launch its range of electric auto rickshaws in June and hopes to replicate its success in ICE three-wheelers where it is the undisputed market leader with a 63 per cent market share. Can it be crowned king of the electric three-wheeler market too? Overall, electric sale volumes are growing at breakneck speed.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's state visit to the US is expected to see discussion on India's possible entry into a US-led global alliance on critical minerals, officials told Business Standard. In June last year, the US, the European Union, and other G7 partners launched the Minerals Security Partnership to ensure that China did not further strengthen its grip on supplies of critical minerals the world over. Various ministries, including the Ministry of Finance, have communicated to the Ministry of External Affairs to explore the possibility of India joining the partnership, officials said.
This number is more than the total number (1,071) of electric cars sold in India in calendar year 2019. MG has stopped registrations for the ZS and will cater to 2,409 of the total bookings.
Electric vehicle retail sales in the country witnessed over three-fold jump last fiscal with two-wheeler offtake leading the segment, according to data compiled by automobile dealers' body FADA. Total electric vehicle (EV) retails reached 4,29,217 units in 2021-22, a rise of three-fold from 1,34,821 units in the financial year 2020-21, the industry body said. Total EV sales had stood at 1,68,300 units in the 2019-20 fiscal, it noted.
The national budget 2019-20 had an outlay of Rs 10,000 crore for Phase-II of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles scheme to boost electric mobility and increase the number of EVs in commercial fleets.
Hyderabad-based Gold Stone Group, which sells BYD buses in the country, is setting up a greenfield manufacturing facility at a cost of around Rs 200 crore
Technology firm Wipro has a "high probability" of getting included in the benchmark Sensex, while two-wheeler major Bajaj Auto is the "most likely" deletion candidate, according to an analysis done by Brian Freitas, an analyst at independent research provider Smartkarma. The changes to the index will be announced mid-November, and will become effective from December 17. The December review uses the 6-month average market capitalisation and trading turnover data between May 1 and October 31 to determine changes.
US-based Tesla is working through a lot of challenges with the government to launch its products in India, the electric car major's founder and CEO Elon Musk said on Thursday. Responding to a tweet on the company's plans to launch its products in India, Musk tweeted: "Still working through a lot of challenges with the government." Last year, Tesla had sought a reduction in import duties on electric vehicles (EVs) in India.
The Union Government on Thursday said that 5.9 million tonnes of lithium reserves have been found for the first time in the country in Jammu and Kashmir. Lithium is a non-ferrous metal and is one of the key components in EV batteries. "Geological Survey of India for the first time established Lithium inferred resources (G3) of 5.9 million tonnes in the Salal-Haimana area of the Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir," the ministry of mines said on Thursday.
As a 75-year-old septuagenarian, Bajaj Auto has adapted itself as a nod to competition, regulations, and changing buyer preference. It will continue to do so, said its managing director Rajiv Bajaj at the launch of the all-new Pulsar 250. This was in response to a question on the company's preparedness for disruption by electric two-wheeler start-ups.
The bickering between allies All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Bharatiya Janata Party in Tamil Nadu over late Dravidian stalwart C N Annadurai peaked on Monday with the regional party snapping ties with the saffron organisation, saying it cannot tolerate any affront to the late chief minister and its other leaders.
They will not be followed by analysts and no fund manager can buy such small companies with low trading liquidity.
Large companies, those that are talked about in the media and tracked on social media, have already been discovered. They won't lead to extraordinary gains, Debashish Basu points out.
If you thought electric scooters have caught the fancy of only people in the metros, think again. According to data from electric two-wheeler maker, Ather Energy, 54 per cent of its sales of scooters, starting from Rs 1.2 lakh, come from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Based on sales per lakh population, the top five cities for the company are Calicut, followed by Kochi, Kolaphur, Trivandrum and Pune.
The two-wheeler sector has been underperforming its peers on the volumes front for over five quarters now. Even in the March quarter, Bajaj Auto and Hero MotoCorp posted a 17-24 per cent YoY decline in volumes, the sharpest in the listed auto universe. The ongoing impact of frequent price hikes, all-time high fuel prices, and muted rural sentiment has led to the lacklustre showing by two-wheeler makers. What has aggravated the situation for two-wheeler companies, which get almost all their sales from the internal combustion engine or ICE-based units, is the traction for electric two-wheelers (EV).
Catamaran, the family office of Infosys founder Narayana Murthy, is targeting 15 per cent returns on its portfolio investments per annum as it shifts focus from early-stage investments to growth and late-stage bets. This would double the firm's assets under management (AUM) from the current $1 billion to $2 billion over the next five years. "For direct investments, we are focusing on growth-stage investments and very selectively on early stage," Deepak Padaki, president, Catamaran, told Business Standard. "(This is) primarily because the early-stage space in India, in the last three-four years, has completely changed. "There has been a huge influx of capital in the last two years. It has become a very crowded space for early-stage investment," he said.
Leading two-wheeler maker Hero MotoCorp is going full throttle to launch a Harley-Davidson model with retro styling as it looks to enter a very profitable segment in the premium motorcycle space, according to a senior company official. The alliance between Hero and Harley-Davidson fructified last year after the iconic US two-wheeler maker announced discontinuation of sales and manufacturing operations in India, a decade after it started selling its premium bikes in the country. "There are two legs to the Harley tie up strategy. One of course is that we are the sales distributors for Harley bikes in India.
Zomato shares may see limited upside in the near-term amid news-flow around government-backed ONDC expanding its footprint in the delivery market, believe analysts. Zomato shares have dropped 4 per cent in three days on the BSE. By comparison, the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex has added 0.2 per cent.
Faced with one setback after another in expanding the scope of mining in the country, almost all the major miners of the world have wound down their operations in India.
Zomato has lost over 9 per cent thus far in calendar year 2023 (CY23) and has underperformed the S&P BSE Sensex that has slipped nearly 5.3 per cent during this period. Despite this underperformance, analysts at HSBC think that the stock can hit Rs 87 going ahead - up over 64 per cent from the current levels. The food delivery industry, wrote Yogesh Aggarwal and Abhishek Pathak of HSBC in a recent note, has slowed considerably in the last few months.
Barbeque Nation IPO: The promoters hold 60.24 per cent stake, CX Partners owns 33.79 per cent and Rakesh Jhunjhunwala's investment firm Alchemy Capital holds 2.05 per cent in the company.
The government is nudging LIC to tweak its product strategy to maximise profitability in a bid to help the country's largest insurer realise its full growth potential and yield better returns for investors, an official said. Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has been trading below the issue price of Rs 949 a share ever since it got listed on stock exchanges on May 17. It listed at Rs 872 apiece on NSE. On Tuesday, the scrip settled at Rs 595.50, down 0.72 per cent over the previous close.
Signals received from the government in the past one year reflect a state of utter confusion, says Abhishek Tripathi.
'We try to pick up stocks early and hold onto them for the long term.' 'We are not someone who buys and sells on a daily basis.'
Besides opening up the possibility of a policy that allows vintage cars retrofitted with electric batteries to ply on roads, this also gives a clue to how cars older than 15 years that are banned can be valued again by a similar conversion to EVs, says Ritwik Sharma.
Six years after the rollout of the biggest indirect tax reform in India, Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue of Rs 1.5 lakh crore every month has become a new normal and tax officers are focusing on dealing with fraudsters who are adopting newer modus operandi to game the system, causing loss to the exchequer. To apprehend black sheep, who operate as syndicates and create fake entities on the basis of forged documents to claim input tax credit (ITC), tax officers have started using data analytics, artifical intelligence and machine learning aiming to curb evasion, which was over Rs 3 lakh crore since inception of GST. It was over Rs 1 lakh crore in 2022-23. Thinktank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said the most critical pending GST reform is upgradation of GST Network to prevent fake supplies and fraudulent claims of Input Tax Credit (ITC).
Kinetic Engineering (KEL), the makers of the iconic Luna two-wheelers in the seventies, will soon start producing components for an electric version of the moped. Pune-based Kinetic said in September that Luna would make a comeback in an electric avatar. The electric Luna, or E-Luna, will be launched by KEL's sister company Kinetic Green Energy and Power Solutions.
The business will also see a change of guard. Shailesh Chandra, president of EV and corporate strategy, will replace Mayank Pareek as president of PV business, including EV, with effect from April 1. Pareek will be superannuating from the company after a six-year stint at the end of February 2021. Chandra and Pareek will work on transition over the next few weeks.
According to reports, by last year, the company has helped its customers save 15 per cent on costs -- around 5-6 per cent on fuel and 15 per cent on fleet utilisation through digital measures.
India is well positioned to continue to be the fastest-growing major economy next year, which may mark the lowest global growth since the millennium began barring the pandemic and the global financial crisis, according to Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran. In his New Year message to around 9.35 lakh employees of the Tata Group, he said increasing consumption, consumer confidence and investment will support India's growth story although the global environment has several risk factors, including the energy crisis in Europe, the battle to contain inflation to avoid recession, and ongoing geopolitical conflicts. "Post-pandemic, India opened up, and we have returned to living our daily lives normally, in a year that saw the nation turn 75 years old.
