New Delhi, April 10:
US President Donald Trump’s new international tariff rules have created a stir in the world economy. India’s electric vehicle (EV) industry is also not untouched by this. Especially after these tariffs imposed on China, it is believed that now cheap and subsidized lithium-ion battery cells can come to India in large quantities. While these changes can bring opportunities for India on the one hand, they can also pose challenges on the other hand – especially for the ‘Make in India’ initiative.
According to Gaurav Dolwani, founder and CEO of lithium-ion recycling organization, LICO Materials, “I think India is a great option for the China Plus One strategy. I think the cost of manufacturing batteries in India is much lower than countries like China, Japan and Korea.”
Currently, India imports 100 percent of its lithium-ion cells. While lithium reserves have been found in the country in recent years, battery cell manufacturing is still in its early stages. However, a big change is going to come in the next few years. Reliance Industries is building a gigafactory in Gujarat, which wants to reach 100 GWh production capacity by 2030. Apart from this, Exide Industries is also building a unit with a capacity of 6 GWh. And Ola Electric has already started production of its cylindrical cells.
Nitin Gupta, CEO of Attero Recycling, believes that the Indian market still has enough capacity to handle these extra batteries. But if there is a flood of cheap batteries from foreign companies. Then this can definitely slow down the pace of new investment in India.(Agencies)
