Bajaj Auto Sets Up New Company For Electric Vehicles to Make Partnerships Easy, Have Single-Minded Focus on the Sector

Two and three-wheeler major Bajaj Auto NSE -0.29 % is setting up a new subsidiary company to handle it’s electric vehicles business for a more hands-on approach to the emerging sector and make partnerships easy.

While the exact set of operations the company will handle has not been finalised, Bajaj Auto felt that it needed a separate company that could focus exclusively on building EVs, said Rakesh Sharma, executive director at Bajaj Auto.

“This gives us the freedom to enter into partnerships, engage in discussions in an agile manner, manage the workforce and have a single-minded focus on the category, which in a larger organisation can sometimes get diffused,” Sharma told ET.

The board of Bajaj Auto Thursday approved a proposal to set up this new subsidiary.

“The wholly owned subsidiary will leverage the growth opportunities in the evolving mobility space and will help the company venture into the manufacturing of electric and hybrid vehicles in the two, three and four wheelers category,” Bajaj Auto said in a customary exchange filing.

Bajaj Auto presently sells an electric scooter under the Chetak brand. The company also has a partnership with shared-mobility startup Yulu. It is also working on performance electric motorcycles with partner KTM.

The company is also working on an electric three-wheeler and a quadricycle.

In December, Bajaj Auto said that it was building a new plant at Chakan, Pune, to make electric vehicles and high-end motorcycles under the KTM and Triumph brands. The Rs 650-crore facility is expected to be operational by 2023.

Source: ET Bureau