Hyundai Motor India launched the Kona Electric yesterday at INR 25.3 lakh (ex-showroom, India). Now a new report says that the company plans to invest close to INR 1,400 crore ($200 million) over the next three years for the development of affordable EVs in India.
Hyundai Motor India managing director S S Kim has said that the company will build a dedicated EV architecture for the customers in India. The India-made electric vehicles develope using this architecture could have export potential.
Hyundai Motor India has already commenced the work along with the parent company's Namyang R&D Centre (South Korea)-based engineers. The company is studying the future prospects for EVs which includes assessing the private buyers for their EV expectations and determining the optimum price range in order to penetrate the market effectively.
Apart from this, Hyundai Motor India is also contemplating the prospect of coming up with a Lithium-ion battery manufacturing unit within the next two to three years. This manufacturing unit will help it build a localized ecosystem to serve the customers at a lower cost. “If we introduce mass-market electric vehicles in the next three years, we will probably need that kind of localized ecosystem,” Kim said.
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As per previous reports, Hyundai will be bringing low-cost EVs in India under its 'Smart EV' project. These products will also be sold in other developing markets as well. The first product under the 'Smart EV' project could be launch within the next two to three years. The recent Union Budget FY2020 proposal to reduce the GST on EVs from 12% to 5% has increased positivity around electric vehicles.
[Source - ETAuto]
