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The growth of the domestic passenger vehicle industry is likely to moderate to less than 5% in the next fiscal, according to Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Managing Director Shailesh Chandra.
The company, however, expects electric vehicle sales to keep growing despite the slow pace of charging infrastructure development in the country.
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“We had seen a very strong growth in FY23 of 25%, which is likely to moderate in FY24 to about 8%. Therefore, we are seeing with this high base effect, and FY25 will be slightly challenging with less than 5% growth rate,” Mr. Chandra said in an analyst call.
He further said, “As far as EVs are concerned, I think the biggest challenge here is the pace at which the charging infra is growing. It is lagging behind the pace at which the EV adoption is happening.”
Citing other challenges, Mr. Chandra noted that while commodity prices have been stable in the past quarter or so, there is a risk that prices of certain items may go up going forward.
“So we are keeping a very close track of that,” he added.
Mr. Chandra noted that in 2023 while the overall passenger vehicle industry grew 8% year-on-year, while the EV sales grew by 95 to 100%.
“And I think this trend is likely to continue. So companies with stronger portfolios in CNG and EVs will grow,” Mr. Chandra said.
He noted that Tata Motors has adopted an open collaboration strategy to expand charging infrastructure for EVs.
“Given that the charging infra is crucial to the growth and expansion of EV market, we have gone for an open collaboration approach with all charge point operators as well as the oil marketing companies who are focusing on expansion of charging infra,” Mr. Chandra said.
Elaborating further, he said the automaker will expand its exclusive sales network for electric vehicles. The company currently has two such outlets in Gurugram.
“In the next 18 months, we believe that in most of the high-selling cities, we would have these exclusive channels,” Mr. Chandra said.
The company will be working on driving the penetration and expansion of the electric vehicle market through a micro market focus, he said.
“So we are focusing on about 15 to 20 cities and also leveraging the expanded range of products. With Punch EV launch, we have now four promising products in the personal segment so we’ll be utilizing that,” Mr. Chandra said.
Tata Motors plans to further expand the range this year by introducing electric SUV Curvv and Harrier EV in 2024.
