Anil Ambani’s Reliance Infrastructure eyes EV foray, plans to make cars & batteries; ex-BYD executive hired: Report

Anil Ambani’s Reliance Infrastructure is planning to make electric cars and batteries and has hired a former India executive from China's BYD Co to devise a plan, a Reuters report said citing sources.

The company has hired external consultants for "cost feasibility" study for constructing an EV plant with an initial capacity of about 250,000 vehicles a year, which will be scaled up to 750,000 in a few years, the report said.

It added that the company is considering the feasibility of constructing a battery plant with a 10 gigawatt-hour (GWh) capacity that will be scaled up to 75 GWh in a decade.

Anil Ambani is the younger brother of Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, the head of Reliance Industries. The brothers split the family business in 2005.

Mukesh Ambani’s company is working to manufacture batteries locally. This week, he won a bid to receive government incentives for 10 GWh of battery cell production.

If Anil Ambani’s company moves forward with EV plans, the Ambani brothers will face each other in a growing EV market.

Last year, electric models constituted less than 2 per cent of the total 4.2 million cars sold in India.

Government plans and other EV players

The government wants to grow sales of EV models to 30 per cent by 2030. The current local battery manufacturers in India, including Exide and Amara Raja, have partnered with Chinese players for technology. The report said that Reliance Industries is also looking for partners for its EV plans.

Currently, Tata Motors is India’s biggest EV player with around 70 per cent market share. Other market players such as Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai Motors are planning to introduce EVs by 2025, the report said.

The Reuters report reviewed the government records and stated that Reliance Infrastructure formed two new auto-related wholly-owned subsidiaries in June. 

One of these companies is named as Reliance EV Private Ltd, which aims to “manufacture, deal, in vehicles of every description and components for transport and conveyance using any nature of fuel."

Mint could not independently verify this report.

In the last few years, Reliance Infrastructure has struggled with cash flow issues and high debt.