This comes at a time when Ola is looking to replicate nationally the success of its auto-rickshaw offering in Chennai and Bengaluru.
The oil ministry has stopped making fresh allocation of natural gas from domestic fields to the city gas sector, threatening the viability of Rs 2 lakh crore investment planned in the sector besides leading to a hike in CNG and piped cooking gas prices to record levels, sources said. Despite a decision of the Union Cabinet to give 100 per cent gas supply under 'no cut' priority to the city gas distribution (CGD) sector, current supplies have been maintained at March 2021 demand level. Besides, the process of allocating gas on a six-monthly average drawl also is punishing the CGD entities driving growth.
After monetising Jio Platforms -- which houses the firm's telecom arm and digital ventures, richest Indian Mukesh Ambani is looking to rope in investors in the retail business.
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.
Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com brings you some of the innovative cars presented at the latest edition of the Consumer Electronics Show.
'Short term volatility is likely due to various factors, global and domestic; investors may use this as an opportunity to increase the allocation to equities.'
'The business continuity clause will mean the Tatas will have to keep running the airline for three years, and cannot exit the flying business.'
Initially it will procure only e-rickshaws and e-autos for leasing to operators
Reliance has significant investments in telecom, consumer retail and media businesses in India.
MSI chairman R C Bhargava said auto sector would like to see GST benefits linked to greener/cleaner cars. The government gave tax cut on EVs but hybrid should be given duty cut. There should be tax cut on CNG vehicles.
The new year will see a line of hatchbacks (including compact SUVs) hit the Indian roads. Rajesh Karkera/Rediff.com offers a peek.
As a tech services company, Ola has never been in hardcore manufacturing. And unlike in ride hailing, which is a two-player market (Uber is the only other competitor), in two-wheelers it faces many entrenched players. But most of all, rivals say Ola's targets are out of sync with most, even ambitious, projections.
To make the most of your vehicle, use the age-old 20/4/10 personal finance rule, suggests Bindisha Sarang.
While Toyota will acquire 4.94 per cent shares of Suzuki, worth $ 908 million, the latter will make a $ 454-million investment in the biggest automaker of Japan. Premium products from the Maruti stable such as the Baleno, Ciaz and Vitara Brezza will be sold under the Toyota brand with small changes.
The government on Monday issued a letter of intent (LoI) confirming the sale of its 100 per cent stake in loss-making Air India to Tata Group for Rs 18,000 crore, a senior official said. Last week, the government had accepted an offer by Talace Pvt Ltd, a unit of the holding company of salt-to-software conglomerate, to pay Rs 2,700 crore in cash and takeover Rs 15,300 crore of the airline's debt. Subsequent to that, an LoI has now been issued to Tata confirming the government's willingness to sell its 100 per cent stake in the airline.
Automobile retail sales in the country fell 18 per cent year-on-year in the 42-day long festive period this year as semiconductor shortage impacted production across companies affecting their ability to supply adequate numbers to dealer partners, FADA said on Thursday. During the period under review, barring three-wheeler and commercial vehicles, all other segments including passenger vehicles, two-wheelers and tractors were down as compared with the same period of last year. As per data collated by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), total retail sales across segments stood at 20,90,893 units this festive period, down 18 per cent from 25,56,335 units in 2020.
Mahindra launches e-mobility platform 'Glyd' to take on Ola, Uber. Targeted at office-going executives, it offers web-conferencing, curated entertainment and music content from selective partners.
The company, which already has around 66 per cent market share in the hatchback segment and about 50 per cent in the overall domestic passenger vehicle segment, currently sells Vitara Brezza and S-Cross in the SUV segment. In an interaction with PTI, MSI managing director and CEO Kenichi Ayukawa acknowledged that there was some lag in launching new products due to the pandemic but the company is now on track regarding new model launches.
Consumers can expect a 5G launch in the country soon. Telecom companies (telcos) say if auctions take place on time - the target is July - they would be able to offer some services in a few cities by the end of this year and a full roll-out from 2023. But the question is: will 5G turn the tables for telcos financially? Will average revenue per user (ARPU) improve? Will mobile consumers upgrade to 5G quickly and pay more? Will the expanded functions that 5G enables drum up sufficient revenues? In simple terms, will telcos make more money?
High cost of acquisition due to a variety of reasons, including higher GST than all other major countries, is slowing down car demand in the country and unless the Centre and states take steps to reduce it, the industry is unlikely to experience reasonable growth, according to Maruti Suzuki India Chairman R C Bhargava. Addressing shareholders in the company's Annual Report for 2020-21, he said after the devastating second wave of the coronavirus pandemic hitting the first quarter of FY22, the performance in the next three quarters will largely depend on how effectively people get vaccinated and observe safety protocols.
There are four things that stand out in China's strategy for electric vehicles, says Vandana Gombar.
Ministries such as road transport and heavy industries are learnt to have objected to NITI Aayog's attempts to become an implementing body for the EV programme.
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.
In a bid to resurrect Air India privatisation, the government is planning to give flexibility to potential investors to decide on the humongous debt with the national carrier, a top official has said. The flexibility to potential investors on the quantum of the Rs 60,074 crore debt that they want to absorb will replace the current condition of the buyer taking over more than a third of the debt and transferring the rest to a special purpose vehicle, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said.
Maruti will showcase its first concept electric vehicle, the e-SURVIVOR; M&M it's six new EVs, including two futuristic concepts
MG Motor India is investing Rs 2,500 crore by the end of next year to increase the production capacity at its Halol plant in Gujarat, as it gears up to launch its mid-size SUV Astor, according to a top company official. Despite the worsening semiconductor shortage situation, which is likely to continue for at least another six months, the company expects its sales this year to grow by up to 100 per cent over last year. "We have done an investment of Rs 3,000 crore already, and by the end of next year, we will do another Rs 2,500 crore. "We will reach a total of Rs 5,500 crore," MG Motor India president and managing director Rajeev Chaba told PTI.
Among the cars unveiled at the Auto Expo on Wednesday was Mahindra and Mahindra's e-KUV for Rs 8.2 lakhs ex-showroom Delhi. With a single charge range of 150 km and a 55 min fast charging upto 80 pc, it was both a head-turner and a conversation-starter.
These start-ups include high-growth companies such as Ola, Paytm, Lenskart, UrbanClap and Urban Ladder. Nearly half of these have gone on to raise follow-on funding, a key measure of success for start-ups. A few have become unicorns, the term for start-ups valued at $1 billion or more.
Niranjan Upadhye, general manager, fraud risk management, Worldline India, tells you how to quickly spot a scam and save yourself from grief.
Given that there has been no negative news flow around Zomato, analysts believe it's time to lap up the shares at lower levels.
The firm, which showcased an electric variant of its Duet scooter at the 2016 Auto Expo, is working on two models at its Jaipur R&D centre.
Market leader Maruti Suzuki is putting finishing touches to its plan of finding its feet in what is being hailed as a battle of epic proportions in India's fastest-growing passenger vehicle segment, reports Arindam Majumder.
But it may come with a downside risk of further rise in prices of several products.
Why does the world's fastest-growing major consumer of energy fail to attract investments in oil and gas? This is a question worth pondering after private sector conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) failed to close a $15-billion downstream asset deal with Saudi Arabia's national oil company, Aramco. It's understandable if multi-billion dollar investments in oil and gas projects or deals involving state companies that need to traverse a complex bureaucracy at state and federal levels and the corridors of ministries unravel. However, Mukesh Ambani-run RIL, India's most successful energy company, is not typically known to fumble on closing deals (Ambani closed deals worth around Rs 2 trillion early last year in telecom and retail with blue chip investors).
The government has used four methods to value the assets that it is looking to monetise under its Rs 6-trillion National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP). The value of the assets on the block is indicative that the government is expected to realise either in the form of upfront accruals or by the way of private sector investment, NITI Aayog said in its report. Valuations are essentially estimates, so multiple methodologies are useful to get a range, said Manish Agarwal, infrastructure expert and co-founder of AskHowIndia.org. Different valuation methodologies depend on the different assumptions that are being considered for valuing a business, he said.
India's largest oil firm IOC will build the nation's first 'green hydrogen' plant at its Mathura refinery, as it aims to prepare for a future catering to the growing demand for both oil and cleaner forms of energy. Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has drawn a strategic growth path that aims to maintain focus on its core refining and fuel marketing businesses while making bigger inroads into petrochemicals, hydrogen and electric mobility over the next 10 years, its chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya said. The company will not set captive power plants at all its future refinery and petrochemical expansion projects and instead use the 250 MW of electricity it produces from renewable sources like solar power, he told PTI in an interview.
'Q1 is going to bear the brunt of the second wave, exposing full-year GDP forecasts to downward revisions, unless phase-3 of vaccination is executed quickly.'
May invest around $100 mn in setting up a 200-acre park