Tata Motors had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Tamil Nadu government to invest Rs 9,000 crore in the state to setup an EV plant. The plant is likely to come up at Ranipet and sources say that the manufacturer could use it to produce Jaguar Land Rover EVs.
Autocar India has learnt that in the first phase, the plant's 2 lakh unit capacity will be used for the Electrified Modular Architecture (EMA) architecture-based EVs, with the possibility of scaling up capacity in the future. This volume will likely be distributed 75 percent and 25 percent for JLR and Tata Motors, respectively, with most of JLR's output likely to be exported.
An official email sent to the company is yet to elicit any response. A move to make India a critical manufacturing base happens at a time when the India-UK Free Trade Agreements (FTA) is likely to conclude soon, thereby making the upcoming plant a critical base for exchange of cars.
JLR looking to manufacture ICE vehicles in India
Additionally, Autocar India learns that beyond manufacturing EVs for JLR, the Tata Group is also looking at moving some of the ICE model production of JLR to India, given the demands of EU and UK legislation that may pose a challenge to manufacture IC engines there. Tata is said to be looking at all three manufacturing bases for the same: Pune, Sanand and the upcoming plant in Tamil Nadu.
Tata Group has committed Rs 1.5 lakh crore investment in JLR for the coming decade, wherein it is transitioning Jaguar into an all-electric brand, and Land Rover's portfolio will likely have electric alternatives by 2026.
Our sister publication Autocar Professional had exclusively reported earlier this year that a multi-billion pound project will lead to the launch of four models each from Tata Motors and JLR over the coming decade.
WITH INPUTS FROM HORMAZD SORABJEE
Hormazd Sorabjee
Anurag Chaturvedi
