Nissan COO Ashwani Gupta’s top 3 mantras to drive EV adoption in India – EQ Mag
Ashwani reiterated that what can further help bring down TCO for electric vehicles is breakthrough technologies with localisation.
In a recent announcement, the Renault-Nissan alliance announced its intent to invest around Rs 5,300 crore in India and launch six new models – three for Renault and three for Nissan – which includes four new C-segment SUVs, and two new A-segment EVs.
Ashwani Gupta, COO, Nissan Motor Corp, in a conversation with Express Mobility said that while the penetration of electric vehicles in India is just 0.5 percent of the overall sales, it is similar to what Europe saw in 2010 when EVs were first introduced in that market. After 13 years the penetration of EVs has reached 18 percent there.
“We don’t expect that India will go electric immediately, but we have to make sustainable investments that create value for the customers,” added Gupta.
He listed out the top three factors why a customer would prefer an electric vehicle — “Number one it’s a better driving performance. Number two it has a better total cost of ownership (TCO) and thirdly because it is good for the environment. The first and third factor is everybody (read OEMs) can tick the box because the electric cars are really good in terms of acceleration in terms of driving handling and so on, the third it is good for the environment.”
“But TCO is driven by a tipping point between the gasoline cars and the battery electric cars. The tipping point is decided by volumes in the market, till the time EV sales do not attain a certain threshold, I think the government needs to continue support to the customers so that there is a parity between the selling price of IC-vehicles and an EV,” pointed out Gupta.
He reiterated that what can further help bring down TCO, is breakthrough technologies with localisation, which provides cost competitiveness in terms of platform, powertrain, battery, and electronic architecture among others.
“I do believe the moment in India will go from 0.5 percent to let’s say 13 percent by 2030. This will help bring the economy of scale this will help all the automotive manufacturers to do further localisation, so we decided to have an A-segment car, now our challenge is not a platform or powertrain. Our challenge is the battery, and this is what we would like to work moving forward on how we secure the competitive battery localisation,” concluded Gupta.
Source: PTI
