Tata's new electric division to bring in longer-range EVs

Tata Motors announced the creation of a new EV subsidiary today and revealed that it has entered an agreement with investment firm TPG Rise Climate, who will invest Rs 7,500 crore for about 11 percent to 15 percent stake in the new company, which translates to an equity valuation of around $9.1 billion.

• Plan to have a portfolio of 10 EVs by 2026
• No hybrids, but CNG vehicles will be launched

Temporarily labelled EVCo, the new company will be formally christened soon. EVCo will design and own future electric vehicle IPs, while Tata Motors Limited will function as the manufacturer, build the vehicles for sale and own the network.

Tata Motors also said it plans on moving away from conversion EVs and its future passenger vehicles will be built on modular multi-energy platforms. Responding to a question from Autocar India, Shailesh Chandra, president, Passenger Vehicles Business at Tata Motors, said, “We have a phased plan to move from generation one to subsequent generations of EVs and in that journey, some of our modern architectures will be adapted to make them more electric ready, specifically to accommodate more battery packs.”

This was also indicated in an earlier interview to Autocar India where Chandra said the company will not look at a born-electric platform for a while and would instead continue to develop existing platforms. Today’s statement about adapting ‘modern architectures’ points towards the company’s ALFA (Altroz, Punch) and OMEGA (Harrier, Safari) platforms being the ones singled out for further development.

Chandra added that the company will also offer CNG vehicles and while we expect the initial models to be converted from the Tigor, Tiago and Nexon, future CNG models will be built on the new multi-energy platforms. Chandra said that these are being designed to better accommodate other power sources like CNG.

The company further said it will have 10 EVs by FY26, all of which would be pure electric, while hybrids have been ruled out. Chandra said the new EV division will not look at hybrids, “We are not looking at it (hybrids), as we do not see this as the future. Furthermore this tech also does not help us meet our CAFE norms. Thus, as things stand, Tata’s future passenger vehicle line-up will comprise petrol, diesel, electric and CNG."