Industry giants like Reliance, Mahindra, Hyundai are bidding for incentives to be given under India’s $2.4 billion battery scheme.
In 2021, India finalized an incentive program to encourage companies to invest in the local manufacturing of batteries as it looks to establish a domestic supply chain for clean transport and build storage for renewable energy.
Friday was set the last day for technical bid submission.
Along with the Industry Giants, Ola Electric, Larsen & Toubro and battery makers Amara & Raja and Exide have also submitted bids. Though non of the companies are commenting on the news.
India has a vision to establish 50 gigawatt hour (GWh) battery storage in next 5 years. This will attract a direct investment of about $6 billion. To qualify for the incentives, companies must set up at least 5 GWh of storage capacity and meet certain local content conditions, all of which would require a minimum investment of more than $850 million.
Clean auto technologies are a key factor of India’s strategy for cutting pollution in major cities and reduce crude oil dependency. The only issue is the high price of batteries that are imported because this EV makes only a fraction of total sales in the country.