Ashok Leyland Ltd. (ALL) is planning to invest up to $200 million in its electric vehicle firm Switch Mobility Ltd. over the next few years. Besides, the company is also planning to unveil its first electric van by the year end, said a top executive.
“We have set for ourselves a challenging vision of being among the top 10 global commercial vehicle players. Our journey in electric vehicle has just started. It is a big, long journey,” said Gopal Mahadevan, CFO, Ashok Leyland.
ALL will be investing $150 million to $200 million in Switch Mobility over the next few years and had already invested £100 million, he said.
“Even though ALL has made the initial capital function, Switch Mobility will have funding coming from the financial and strategic investors with the former exploring all opportunities,” chairman Dheeraj Hinduja told select mediapersons.
“The support of ALL and Hinduja Group for Switch will always be there. Today, EV companies are seeing a lot of interest from a whole host of prospective financial and strategic investors. We believe that ALL has done the initial capital infusion and it is moving in the right direction,” he said.
Dr. Andy Palmer, executive vice-chairman and CEO, Switch Mobility, said that they had bagged orders for 2,000 e-LCVs from 21 logistics companies. “Right now, they are undergoing testing with number of prospective clients,” he added.
“We already have a head start in the e-Mobility space, with our vehicles already clocking millions of miles in service. We want to increase our reach further and work with different stakeholders to encourage the faster adoption of net zero carbon mobility,” Dr. Andy said.
Asserting that the electric vans would be delivered by the year end, he said that the company was looking at developing both vans and buses simultaneously as the powertrains were same. The tendering process for buses were on in Europe, the U.K. and in India. Products would be made in India for the domestic market, he added.
“As leaders, we need to create sustainable solutions that are simple, practical and make good business sense to our customers. Switch Mobility, with its strength in net zero carbon technologies, combined with ALL’s expertise in the mobility space, will lead this change and enable us to fulfill our aspiration of net zero carbon mobility,” said Vipin Sondhi, MD & CEO, Ashok Leyland.
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