Arvind Mathew to step down as Mahindra Reva CEO

Arvind Mathew, the chief executive officer of homegrown carmaker Mahindra & Mahindra’s electric vehicle subsidy Mahindra Reva, is set to step down from the top position.

Mathew will be replaced by Mahesh Babu, who has been the chief operating officer of the electric car company since January 2015. Babu was instrumental in developing the XUV500 and was its project head. Meanwhile, Mathew may take on a new role within the Mahindra Group.

Mathew had taken over from Reva founder, Chetan Maini on May 1, 2015, who had resigned from his post as the head of the electric car company. Currently, Maini has almost no active role in the company. In fact, he is more of an advisor to Anand Mahindra, chairman of the Mahindra Group.

A former managing director of Ford India, Mathew came to Mahindra with over two decades of experience with the US carmaker, where he was involved in the development of new vehicles and powertrain programme. Before joining Mahindra Reva, he held the position of CEO, Tata Advanced Materials Ltd.

Mahindra Reva, which recently branded itself as Mahindra Electric, is India’s only electric car company. Sales of electric vehicles grew 37.5 percent to 22,000 units in the year ending March 2016, up from 16,000 units in 2014-15, according to Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV). Of these, only 2,000 units were four-wheelers.

Mahindra Reva recently launched its zero-emissions sedan e-Verito in key cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Nagpur at a price of Rs 9.50 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi).