The country's largest automotive battery maker, Exide Industries Ltd, has enters into the manufacturing of e-rickshaws. The new vertical, which the company launched on Wednesday, is likely to add nearly ₹120 crore to its topline in the first full year of operations.
E-rickshaws will be sold under the brand ‘Exide Neo’ and across markets such as West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, North East and the National Capital Region.
According to Gautam Chatterjee, Managing Director and CEO, Exide Industries, this is the first forward integration project that the company has taken up in recent times. An assembly line with an annual capacity of 15,000 units has come up at Dankuni (Hooghly), Kolkata.
Targeting 10,000 unit sales in 1st year
“We are targeting 10,000 unit sales in the first year of operations. That should lead to an addition of ₹120 crore to our top-line,” Arun Mittal, Director Automotive, Exide Industries, said.The company would also explore the possibility of having e-rickshaws with lithium-ion batteries.
Lithium-ion batteries
According to Exide’s MD, Chatterjee, the company’s lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility is expected to start production December on wards. The facility is located in Gujarat.
The company has formed a 75:25 joint venture with Swiss firm ‘Leclanche’ and has already invested around ₹100 crore. Another ₹100 crore is expected by the end of March 2020.
Chatterjee maintained that lithium-ion batteries are costly and plans are also on to introduce a leasing / financing model so that e-rickshaw users can adopt to these, if required.
However, e-vehicles do not pose a threat to its core automotive battery business. “The fact remains that electric cars would also need lead acid batteries. The dashboard, power windows, power steering, all these will be run by lead acid batteries. In the electric vehicles, when they come, the lithium batteries will replace the engine. But the lead acid batteries will continue to remain as auxiliary batteries. That way the emergence of EVs will not dent the future of a company like ours,” he said.