Jindal-owned JSW plans to produce EVs in Rs 40,000 cr investment push

Billionaire Sajjan Jindal-owned JSW group is planning to set up an electric vehicle (EV) venture in Odisha that would include producing electric commercial vehicles (CVs) and passenger cars and a battery storage plant. 

The investment of Rs 40,000 crore, spread over the next few years, will be the largest investment in an electric vehicle capacity in India so far.

The project will be a separate initiative from the joint venture planned by the group in association with SAIC Motor Corp in which the group has picked up a 35 per cent stake. 

SAIC currently operates MG Motor India which is selling two electric cars in the Indian markets.

MG Motor has a plant in Halol in Gujarat which manufactures both EVs and internal combustion engine cars.

None of the listed JSW group's listed companies are participating in the electric vehicle project.

According to industry estimates, the price difference between electric cars and internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles is almost 30 per cent. 

The group plans to bring down EV cars on par with the combustion engine cars, said a source in the group. The cars would be priced at around Rs 20 lakh. 

China has sold 10 million EVs, whereas, India has sold around 0.1 million. 

As per Jindal, China has set up a 2,000 gigawatt (GW) battery plant and till now India has not set up one GW plant. 

As per the plan, Jindal would set up a 50 GWh battery plant for both mobility and energy storage systems, a commercial e-vehicles plant to produce 100,000 vehicles a year, and a passenger electric car plant with 300,000 cars making capacity. 

The group will also set up an auto component manufacturing plant for e-power train production.