Week 1 (Jan 1 - 4)
This week's susbtack includes articles on Tesla delivering locally built Model 3s in China, India setting up 2636 EV charging stations, Tata Motors & Evera tieup and Zoomcar's EV plans for self drive.
Tesla delivered its first 'Made in China' Model 3. 357 days. Thats all it took Tesla from breaking ground to delivering the first Tesla from its Shanghai Gigafactory. With its 3rd and the first ever Gigafactory outside the US, Tesla hopes to make further inroads in the worlds largest EV market that sold 1.3 million vehicles in 2018. Till now Tesla was importing all cars into China and with local production that is expected to ramp up to 10,000 cars per week, it will be able to lower prices and better compete with other foreign automakers such as BMW and Volkswagen AG.
In a major EV push, GoI plans to set up 2636 EV charging stations. In a bid to give a further push to clean mobility, Department of Heavy Industries (DHI) has sanctioned 2636 charging stations in 62 cities under FAME II. Maharashtra has the maximum allocation with 317, followed by 266 in AP, 256 in TN, 228 in Gujarat, 205 in Rajasthan, 207 in UP, 172 in Karnataka, 159 in MP, 141 in WB, 138 in Telangana, 131 in Kerala, 72 in Delhi, 70 in Chandigarh, 50 in Haryana, 40 in Meghalaya, 37 in Bihar, 29 in Sikkim, 25 each in J&K and Chhattisgarh, 20 in Assam, 18 in Odisha and 10 each in Uttarakhand, Puducherry and HP. Out of these 2636 charging stations, 1633 will be fast charging and 1003 will be slow charging stations and ~14000 chargers will be installed.
Tata Motors Partners with Prakriti E-Mobility to deploy 500 Tigor EVs. Delhi-based startup Prakriti E-mobility that runs Evera, an app based electric cab service has entered into a partnership with Tata Motors to deploy 500 Tigor EVs in the city. The startup in association with Tata Power is also setting up 30 slow chargers and 5 fast chargers in Delhi-NCR, which will enable the taxi drivers to charge the car. The 100% e-taxi segment in the city includes players such as BluSmart, Lithium and EEE Cabs who not are trying to build their own demand channel through B2C or B2B means but are also providing their cars to taxi aggregators such as Ola & Uber.
Suzuki, Toshiba & Denso to build battery factory in India. In October 2019, Automotive Electronics Power Pvt. Ltd, a JV between Suzuki, Toshiba and Denso signed an MoU with the Gujarat government to build India’s first lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant for EVs in Hansalpur. With a combined proposed investment of Rs 5000 crores, the facility is expected to start producing battery packs first and reach a capacity of 1GWh by 2025. The firms are expected to jointly invest Rs 3700 crore to set up 4 additional battery assembly lines. Gujarat is attracting a lot of domestic and foreign interest in Lithium-ion battery manufacturing - Tata Chemicals set up their 10 GWh facility in Dholera while Adani is scouting for locations with its foreign partner.
Zoomcar to be electric vehicle-driven by 2025: The Sequoia and Mahindra & Mahindra funded startup expects to add another 2500-3000 EVs on its self-drive platform. As per the founder, EVs form 5% of the total number of cars available on its platform while 10-15% of its user base opting for these cars. Zoomcar is banking on creation of electric charging infrastructure and new EV launches with higher range to encourage self-drive customers to go green. Zoomcar competes with Myles, Voler, Drivezy and Revv in the $100M self-drive market.
Other interesting reads