The heavy industries ministersaid that the proposal for the auto scrappage policy was ready and all stakeholders have provided inputs, therefore its announcement was likely very soon.
SoftBank-backed Ola Electric took the wraps off its maiden e-scooter offerings -- Ola S1 and S1 Pro -- for a commercial launch on Sunday. With prices starting from Rs 99,999 (excluding state government incentives, registration fee, and insurance cost), the Bhavesh Aggarwal-founded firm said the e-scooters are designed and engineered in India for the world and will deliver the best scooter experience to the consumer. He suggested that after 2025, sale of petrol-powered two-wheelers should not be allowed.
Leading passenger vehicle maker Maruti Suzuki on Saturday reported marginal growth while Hyundai and Tata Motors posted a decline in their sales in February as a slowdown in the market continued with demand remaining muted. On the other hand, Mahindra & Mahindra and Toyota Kirloskar Motor posted double-digit growth riding on their SUV and MPV models.
In a big push to the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, the government has nearly doubled (increase of 81 per cent) the allocation in five key industry segments from Rs 8,405 crore in the Revised Estimate of FY24 to Rs 15,198 crore in the Interim Budget for FY25. The segments cover over eight PLI schemes, including mobile phones, IT hardware, pharma (PLIs for medical devices, intermediates and pharmaceuticals), food processing, telecom hardware and, auto and auto components. In FY24, DPIIT officials, however, said that the disbursements would be much higher at around Rs 11,000 crore than what has been budgeted for the year.
'The aim is also to probe how the ministry and testing agencies made negligence in examining these OEMs, so that such negligence is avoided in the future.'
'It is going to be extremely rapid and anybody who is not there, be it investor, manufacturer, supplier, will miss out.'
'We don't have to compete with Maharashtra or Gujarat. We have to now start thinking about how we compete with the United States or China.'
The new four-wheeler (4W) electric vehicle (EV) policy may spur the entry of global majors. The manufacturing policy cuts Customs duty to 15 per cent, given a minimum investment commitment. It calls for a minimum investment of Rs 4,150 crore (about $500 million) for making electric four wheelers (e-4Ws), with manufacturing to commence within three years of approval.
Layoffs, corporate restructuring, governance and most importantly profitability: The 14 Indian startups that plan IPOs this year are pulling out all the stops to ensure successful market debuts.
'Every Indian should move to an EV, and the government should not buy any fossil fuel cars. The government should become the first driver of EV adoption.'
The country saw a massive year-on-year surge in the demand for electric vehicles, with retail sales of electric two-wheelers rising by 58 per cent, passenger vehicles by 130 per cent, three-wheelers by 82 per cent, and commercial vehicles by 171 per cent in March 2023, according to the data shared by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (Fada). According to a report by JMK Research, the EV segment as a whole grew by 157 per cent during FY23, to 1,180,597 units, from 458,746 units a year ago. Overall, EV sales in March 2023 rose by 82 per cent from the March 2022 figure, the JMK report added.
Passenger Vehicle makers are likely to see their cumulative earnings at an operating level erode by Rs 1,800-2,000 crore in the year ending March 2022 on account of the shortage of semiconductors, rating agency Icra said at a webinar on Wednesday. The industry, it pointed out, is estimated to lose production of 500,000 units at the end of FY22 due to the chronovc shortage the chip, which is critical in safety, entertainment and the various other smart features of a car. "In absence of the chip crisis, the industry volumes are likely to have exceeded the all-time peak annual volumes." Icra has pared its growth estimates for the PV market from the earlier 10-14 per cent to 8-11 per cent now in FY22.
Vietnam-based electric vehicle maker VinFast, a rival of Tesla in the global market, has set foot in India and began work on building its Rs 16,000 crore EV manufacturing facility at Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu. The company has already sought a reduction in import duties on its cars for about two years until customers get familiar with the brand and its unit in the state. The global major kicked off the construction of the first phase of its integrated EV hub, which may see Rs 4,000 crore of investment initially and will create more than 10,000 jobs.
According to the official, an electric bus on Route 66 (from Ballard Pier in south Mumbai) was on its way to Rani Laxmibai Chowk in Sion when the incident occurred.
More than 40 new product launches are expected at the upcoming Auto Expo which will be held under the umbrella of Bharat Mobility Global Expo 2025 from January 17-22, a government official said on Tuesday. With visas continuing to be an issue, large scale participation of Chinese companies are unlikely although some of them are participating at the expo, Joint Secretary at Ministry of Commerce and Industry Vimal Anand said at the sidelines of curtain raiser of 'Bharat Battery Show' which will also be a part of the Bharat Mobility Global Expo 2025.
With a million-odd electric vehicles (EVs) - two-wheelers, e-rickshaws, buses and passenger cars - expected to hit the road this calendar year, the shift from gasoline-powered vehicles has become irreversible. Now the question is whether the supply chain is ready for this shift. Key components - the high-powered lithium-ion battery and the cells which go with it, the electric motor, and the electronics powered by chips - account for nearly 60 per cent of the cost of an EV.
The Ministry of Heavy Industries announced on Tuesday that it has received bids from seven players for the re-bidding tender of the 10 gigawatt-hour (Gwh) tranche of the Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) manufacturing production-linked incentive (PLI). "The list of bidders (in alphabetical order) who have submitted bids in response to this tender are ACME Cleantech Solutions, Amara Raja Advanced Cell Technologies, Anvi Power Industries, JSW Neo Energy, Reliance Industries, Lucas TVS, and Waaree Energies for a cumulative capacity of 70 Gwh," the ministry said in a statement. After the re-auctioning for the manufacturing unit was announced in January, the pre-bid meeting was held on February 12, the ministry said.
TVS Motor Company has been one of the best-performing two-wheeler stocks in the current financial year (FY24), enriching investors with gains of 24 per cent. Among listed two-wheeler stocks, only Hero MotoCorp has done better in this period. New launches, market share gains, steady margins and expectations that its performance will continue in FY24 are expected to support TVS Motor's stock.
Traversing from being just vehicle manufacturers to mobility solutions providers amid a raging debate over which eco-friendly technology must be incentivised, the Indian automobile industry is driving in the new year under the shadow of a slowdown in sales with the post-pandemic pent-up demand in distant memory. The shift in the auto industry -- where advanced technologies like autonomous driving, vehicle intelligence, connected features and electrification are quickly gaining traction -- will be reflected in the upcoming Bharat Mobility Global Expo in which India's flagship Auto Expo has been clubbed to be held from January 17-22, 2025 in Delhi-NCR.
Maruti will showcase its first concept electric vehicle, the e-SURVIVOR; M&M it's six new EVs, including two futuristic concepts
Five cities -- Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Surat -- ceded their power of procurement and agreed to a different procurement model to operate state-run buses.
From the customer point of view too, LFP batteries are safer and offer a longer life.
The car was expected to have a price tag of Rs 10 lakh and launch was slated for this June.
Overall, the BGauss RUV 350 is a feature-packed electric scooter with a unique design and competitive performance.
Almost all of these companies either unveiled their new electric vehicle or alternative energy-powered models.
'We are not asking for incentives, but at least taxation can be aligned such that the rupee tax on consumers remains the same.'
After lagging behind other segments in the automotive (auto) space over the past few years, two-wheelers are expected to reverse their volume underperformance. After witnessing a 36.3 per cent volume decline over the 2018-19 (FY19) through 2021-22 (FY22) periods, the sector staged a recovery in 2022-23 (FY23), with volumes rising 17 per cent. While volumes are still a quarter lower than the FY19 peak of 21 million units, a double-digit growth trajectory is expected to prolong.
'The favourable rupee-dollar exchange rate, there are opportunities we can tap.'
So far at least eight incidents of EV fires have been reported in just over a month's time.
Ahead of the upcoming Union Budget, Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV) has asked Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to either rejig the FAME II scheme or reintroduce FAME I, saying the programme meant to promote EVs in its second avatar has been able to achieve less than 10 per cent of its target. The Rs 10,000-crore FAME-II scheme which is to be implemented over a period of three years, came into effect from April 1, 2019. It is the expanded version of FAME India I (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid) and Electric Vehicles (FAME) which was launched on April 1, 2015, with a total outlay of Rs 895 crore.
Vader is the first electric bike in India to offer 7-inch Android display.
The electric scooter juggernaut which has been picking up momentum with heady growth month-on-month is now slowing down. The combined number of registrations in April of eight electric two wheeler companies has seen a dip of over 1 per cent to 43,061 vehicles, according to data from the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways' site VAHAN. The reasons are the continuing shortage of chips, especially after the Ukraine-Russia war, and the spate of fires which have led to scooters being recalled by manufacturers.
Bajaj Auto's market capitalisation (market cap) hit Rs 2 trillion mark for the first time. The stock of the two and three-wheeler major rallied 6 per cent to hit a new high of Rs 7,420 on the BSE in Tuesday's (January 9) intraday trade after its board approved Rs 4,000 crore share buyback at Rs 10,000 per share. The stock ended the day at Rs 7,093.75, up 1.55 per cent and its market cap a shade above Rs 2 trillion.
If the drop in sales over the past two years is anything to go by, India's dream of putting seven million electric vehicles on road by the end of this decade has come a cropper.
Ratings agency ICRA on Wednesday revised downwards growth forecast for the domestic passenger vehicles industry to 8-11 per cent in the ongoing fiscal from the earlier estimate of 14-17 per cent on account of the ongoing semiconductor shortage. Similarly, for the two-wheeler segment, it said the volumes are expected to contract by 1-4 per cent in FY2022 against an earlier prediction of 6-8 per cent growth as affordability and demand sentiments of target clientele was hit sharply by the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic. With around 5 lakh units of production lost by various automakers in the passenger vehicles segment due to the semiconductor shortage, ICRA said the earnings loss for the OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) could be around Rs 1,800 crore to Rs 2,000 crore for the ongoing fiscal.
The first luxury car will be launched in the first quarter of 2025 and the company is planning to open 12 'MG Select' showrooms in the next six months.
It takes a while to get used to the constant and instant supply of power that is the case with EVs, and handling the S1 Pro when it takes a corner or makes a turn can be tricky, says Pavan Lall.
Automobile manufacturers are likely to report strong numbers for the September quarter of Financial Year 2023-24 (Q2 FY24), riding on growth across segments and offset by a marginal drop in overall two-wheeler (2W) volumes. Higher average selling price (ASP) year-on-year (YoY), which was necessitated by price hikes taken by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and an improved product mix will also aid revenues and margins. Moreover, commodity prices are down on a YoY basis, leading to higher margins in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda).
...But sales of domestic passenger vehicles dropped 2% to 3% year-on-year in August owing to low demand.