The investments made by Bajaj will be supplemented by a number of vendors, who will invest a further Rs 250 crore
Indian auto giant Bajaj Auto will be spending Rs 300 crore for manufacturing electric vehicles at its new unit at Akurdi, Pune.
Spread over an area of half a million square feet, the company said that the unit will have a production capacity of 500,000 EVs a year and employ nearly 800 people. The first vehicle from the unit is expected to roll out by June 2022.
Rajiv Bajaj, managing director, Bajaj Auto, said, “Going forward, for the Bajaj portfolio, except for implementing one state-of-the-art ICE platform that is currently under development, all our R&D resources are now laser-focused on creating EV solutions for the future. This alignment reflects our belief that light EVs for sustainable urban mobility is an idea whose time may finally have come.”
The investments made by Bajaj will be supplemented by a number of vendors, who will invest a further Rs 250 crore, the company said.
Bajaj Auto’s presence in the EV space is through the Chetak, a fully electric scooter that was launched in January 2020. Bajaj currently produces around 1,000 units of the Chetak EV scooter a month.
Earlier this year, Bajaj Auto had informed during its AGM in July that it will set up a separate subsidiary to expand into the electric and hybrid vehicle space, as the sector witnesses exponential growth globally.
Speaking at the AMG, Rakesh Sharma, executive director, Bajaj Auto had said, “We are evaluating the full spectrum of possibilities in micro-mobility to performance motorcycles on the electric platform. Today the board of directors have approved the formation of a 100 per cent subsidiary purely to build the electric vehicle (EV) business. We view the future of the development of EV industry as an opportunity and not as a threat.”
