Mahindra and Mahindra may soon join the electric vehicle market in India as the home-grown auto major plans to launch the fully electric version of its XUV300 SUV in the first quarter of 2023. The company also announced that it will unveil its electric vehicle business strategy, ‘Born Electric Vision’ of EV concept in August this year. The Mumbai-headquartered company has recently partnered with Volkswagen to explore the use of the latter’s modular electric drive matrix (MEB) components that can be used in its electric cars.
MEB electric platform and its components allow car manufacturers to build their portfolio of electrified vehicles, quickly and cost-effectively. “We will be launching the electric version of XUV 300, which we hope to have in the first quarter of the next calendar year,” M&M Executive Director Rajesh Jejurikar said at a media conference on May 30.
He said that though it is called the electric version of XUV 300, it is a 4.2 meter in length vehicle and not sub-4 meter. Jejurikar said the company is going to reveal the ‘Born Electric Vision’ in the UK on August 15. Jejurikar said the recently launched XUV 700 has seen only 10-12 percent cancellations despite a waiting period of 18-24 months.
“XUV 700 has been a huge success and even with the kind of period we have now, which is 18-24 months and despite producing 5,000 vehicles a month, we are getting bookings of more than 9,000-10,000 units every month,” he said.
He, however, said that as the company ramps up the capacity with semiconductor supplies expected to improve further, the waiting period will come down. Mahindra & Mahindra reported a nearly five-fold jump in standalone profit at Rs 1,192 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2022.
The company had posted a profit of Rs 245 crore in the year-ago period, it said. Revenue grew 28 percent to Rs 17,124 crore in the period under review as compared to Rs 13,356 crore in March quarter 2020-21, it added.
