India’s Reliance Group, based in Mumbai, is considering entering the country’s battery electric vehicle (BEV) market, according to local reports citing two sources.
Reliance is one of India’s largest privately owned conglomerates with interests ranging from oil and gas, energy generation, telecoms and healthcare to retail.
The group’s Reliance Infrastructure unit was understood to have retained the services of Sanjay Gopalakrishnan, a former executive at BYD India, to carry out a feasibility study for a BEV plant with initial capacity for 250,000 units per year rising to 750,000 later.
A feasibility study would also be carried out for a BEV battery plant with an initial capacity of 10GWh per year.
Reliance Group and Gopalakrishnan had not confirmed those reports.
Reliance Infrastructure is headed by Anil Ambani, the younger brother of Mukesh Ambani, one of Asia’s richest individuals. Mukesh is the head of Reliance Industries, which recently won government support for a 10GWh BEV battery plant.
India’s BEV market is in initial stages of development, accounting for less than 2% of the 4.2m passenger vehicle sales in the country last year. The government has set a target for BEVs to account for 30% of sales by 2030 and is offering generous incentives to encourage local production.
