Electric vehicles core to our future, says Royal Enfield’s Siddhartha Lal

The emerging electric vehicle business will be at the core of the future of Royal Enfield, says MD Siddhartha Lal, adding that there are no plans to hive off the EV business into a separate unit.

Speaking to media post Q1 earnings, Lal says, "EV is very much at core of Eicher Motors and Royal Enfield. Unless something dramatically changes, it will be within the Royal Enfield and Eicher Motors fold." This point of view is coming at a time, when vehicle makers like Bajaj Auto and TVS Motor have either made their EV business a separate unit, or are in the process of creating an independent arm.

Lal explains, "We do explore all options, we look at what others are doing, but we are not trend followers. One also has to think about the core business – is it a sunset business? If you are putting your eggs in something else, you are diluting yourself further. EV will be the future growth engine for Eicher Motors and Royal Enfield and it will remain within Eicher Motors. There is no action or endeavour to change that at all."

On its part, the company has set up a dedicated unit to offer a sharper focus on the business. The company has already hired over 100 engineers led by CTO Umesh Krishnappa.

Lal says the first EV from the company is still two years away and yet the preparations are in full swing. It is carving out a specific capacity of 1-1.5 lakh units for EVs from its existing set up, before expanding into a new factory eventually, which will come up at Cheyyar, Tamil Nadu.

"We are around two years before the product hits the market. We are working super hard on it. We are riding our prototypes; we still have time. We don’t want to give half-baked stuff in the market, our idea is to be totally disruptive. It is not about taking some competition head on, we are working on a completely different paradigm on EVs. It takes time to put together something really fantastic," he says.

The company has committed over Rs 1,000 crore capex and a large part of the investment is likely to go into electric vehicle development. B Govindarajan, CEO of Royal Enfield, says the company is going full speed on execution. "We are in the phase of execution. We have testing mules, we are shortlisting the supplier partner for motor, controller, battery management system... Our focus is on making a gorgeous and disruptive motorcycle," he adds.   

with inputs from Shruti Mishra