Mumbai:
The Franco-Japanese alliance of Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi is in the process of identifying the right EV product for India and is closely watching the battery localisation and the pace of development of charging infrastructure, Ashwani Gupta, the global COO of Nissan Motor Corporation, said.Encouraged by the performance of the EV segment in India, Gupta acknowledged the ‘big potential.’ “In just one year, the Indian EV market has grown three times, and (going ahead) India is going to have a big potential for the EV market,” said Gupta, adding, “Definitely we will be there, give us more time to study…”
The company may bring in its global CMF-B EV platform designed for Europe into India – which is of the size of Nexon in the future if the undergoing study concludes favourably.
Responding to ET’s query during the global announcement, wherein the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance announced 23 billion Euros in the coming five years, Gupta alluded that the newly announced CMF-B EV platform (planned for 2024) as part of the investment may be a potential alternative to make its way into India.
Gupta elaborated that the Group is studying three things: “first is product excitement. We know that based on our experience, we will be overachieving with our product to meet the aspirations of Indian customers. The second is competitiveness – while the platform is competitive, the only question is how we are going to localise the battery, and the third one is the ecosystem which includes the infrastructure; once we can tick these three boxes, definitely we will be there,” assured Gupta.
Last year, Gupta had mentioned a possible feasibility study on the Giga factory for batteries in India.
A new roadmap announced on Thursday envisages four common EV platforms – which Renault will share, Nissan and Mitsubishi, including Alpine and Infiniti – CMF-A EV, – E-Kei, CMF-B EV and E-LCV platform.
These four platforms will churn out 35 new EVs by the end of 2030. While the alliance sold one million cars from 2009-to 2021, they expect to produce 1.5 million cars per annum by 2026. More than 15 models will be based on the CMF-B EV platform, which will be the base for half of the global EV portfolio of the Group by the end of the decade.
At present, 15 of its plants located in the main markets, Europe, Japan, United States, and China are already producing parts, motors, batteries, and cars to power up the electric lineup.
The alliance partners invest 15 billion Euros in R&D each year. More than 1 million zero-emission vehicles sold worldwide
The Group has aligned EV battery technology by selecting common battery suppliers in France, UK and Japan. They have defined a shared vision for electric and electronic architecture.
The Group employs 4.2 lakh employees covering 100% of major automotive markets, delivering products from 29 plants worldwide. Following a leader-follower policy, wherein responsibilities are well distributed, each member of the alliance has access to all the technology of the entire Group.
Through this approach, the alliance is aiming for more than 80% of common parts across 90 models by 2026.
Nissan is leading the autonomous driving and development of solid-state batteries, Renault is the leader in electronics, and electrical architecture, and the group companies are already utilising Mitsubishi’s expertise in PHEVs and compact cars.
As an alliance, the Group has committed to reducing emissions from vehicles by 30% worldwide by 2030, to become carbon neutral by 2050.
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The three are expected to announce on Thursday a plan to invest more than 20 billion euros ($23 billion) over the next five years on EV development, the sources said. By 2030, the alliance is expected to come up with more than 30 new battery EVs underpinned by five common platforms, they said.
