How Tata Motors overcame the chicken and egg situation confronting India’s EV market

Tata Motors, the dominant player in the EV market, sees EVs growing at an exponential pace and expects that the government’s target of 30% EV sales by 2030 can be reached.

“This year in the first five months itself we have seen the industry already has done about 20,000 which means that industry is definitely going to be above 50,000 in this financial year,” said Shailesh Chandra, MD, PV & Tata Passenger Electric Mobility.

Talking to ETNOW, Chandra recalled that Tata Motors collaborated with Tata Power to find a way around the charging infrastructure challenge often called the chicken and egg situation.

“So if I was launching my cars in seven cities we said that you also focus on those seven cities so that we overcome this chicken and egg issue so I know how much I am going to sell, how many chargers will be required and in which cities Tata Power chargers will be utilised the most because we know where we are selling the car, where our cars are moving so that is how we started the journey.”

Chandra underlined that the electrification of mobility is important and that losing some market share as a result of increasing competition is not a worry. He added that growing competition will be beneficial as it will result in more volumes for the company.

Sales of electric vehicles could touch the 5 crore mark by 2030, a KPMG report highlighted recently. The EV boom is a great opportunity for companies to come up with the charging infrastructure.

“As of March 2022, the number of EVs on Indian roads had surpassed one million. This number is likely to grow to 45-50 million EVs on road by 2030,” the report said.

Tata Motors, the market leader in the passenger car EV segment, offers Nexon and Tigor and will come out with its third electric vehicle Tiago by the end of September. Tata Motors plans to roll out around 10 EVs in the next five years.