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MG Motors President Rajeev Chaba on the company’s business roadmap and future of EVs in India

Updated : January 23, 2020 03:53 PM IST

ZS EV receives bulk bookings from Hyderabad and Bangalore.

The company may speed up plan to set up a battery assembling plant in India.

India's automobile sector is going through an unprecedented slowdown, but MG (Morris Garages) Motor India, one of the country's major carmakers, is not looking concerned. The company, which has launched the much-awaited ZS EV, India’s first pure electric internet SUV, on Wednesday has secured a good response for the new-age electric SUV, receiving over 2,800 bookings in 27 days.

In fact, the number of bookings received for the ZS EV is more than the total number of EV cars sold in India in 2019. And Rajeev Chaba, President of MG Motors, is upbeat about the road ahead.

“This good response will definitely force us to look at the market in a different way and that would mean the battery assembly plant in India and launching more EVs. Though we have been very categorical right from day one that we believe in this cause, this reinforces and forces us to probably accelerate some of our attempts in this area,” Chaba told CNBC-TV18 in an exclusive interview.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

You have received over 2,800 bookings for MG ZS EV so far, where have the bulk of bookings come from?

Mostly these are individuals in five cities. South India has scored much more than North India I must say; both Hyderabad and Bangalore, they have surprised us with bulk bookings. However, even in the showroom in Gurgaon, 270 bookings have come from the showroom. So, the overall response has been all over these five places. Even Ahmedabad, it is a small place relatively, has given us good bookings. So the tech guys from Ahmedabad and Bangalore are now number one, number two and is followed by North and West, and even Ahmedabad has done pretty well.

Percentage wise?

Up to 80 percent is private and 20 percent is the big fleet guys like Lithium and Miles. So the new-age companies that are providing mobility solutions, they typically have only electric vehicles in their fleet. These new-age mobility providers, companies, they have booked cars. So these are not typical fleet owners, these are the EV fleet guys only.

This car gives a range of 340 kilometers, but there has been anxiety over charging as well. So, how are you addressing that concern?

We are trying from our side. We are catering to 80-90 percent of your needs and by that I mean, there are five ways of charging from our perspective. One is we give a normal charger with the car and you can plug it into any 15amp socket. The bigger thing is that we are saying at our cost, at the price what consumer is paying for the car, we are going to install a fast AC charger at your house or home and that will take care of the overnight charging. Then there are fast chargers at dealerships, satellite towns and then we have a mobile charging van also through our vendor.

So, in case something goes wrong and you are stuck on the road, then the mobile charging van can offer you help. So from our perspective, we are getting ready as part of our ecosystem. Whatever the government does, and the government is quite serious and intention is to have lots of chargers throughout the country, so that will be plus to this.

Tell us about your plans to set up a battery assembling plant in India. You had earlier said in two years’ time; do the bookings encourage you to probably set up a battery manufacturing plant, assembling plant this year itself?

This good response will definitely force us to look at the market in a different way and that would mean about the battery assembly in India and that would mean launching more EVs in India. Though we have been very categorical right from the day one that we believe in this cause and that is what we will do, but this reinforces and forces us to probably accelerate some of our attempts in this area. So, it is too early right now to make any comment on concrete plans, but definitely the debate has started in the company.

You are looking and reviewing your plans and maybe there might be a possibility that you may advance the date?

Yes, it will be pulling ahead and doing more, rather than delaying the things.

I would like to speak to you about your budget demands as well. A lot of demands have come from the auto industry, especially from the point of view of electric vehicles and diesel cars, any particular recommendations you have?

For the EVs, I think the government has done quite a bit in terms of GST direction, it is 5 percent. So that is a clear cut cake which the government has offered. However, if we want to make it a mass movement and we want to seriously accelerate our efforts, something more can be done like FAME-II which is for a limited period of five years, if it can be made clear it is for a longish period and also the private vehicle ownership can be included as part of it, probably will help us accelerate this kind of efforts.

For your diesel cars - are prices likely to go up by about Rs 1.25 lakh?

Talking about the euro 6 version of diesel cars, we are still finalising the pricing. The cost is huge and that’s almost Rs 80,000 to Rs 125,000, but if you put the tax and everything then the price goes up, but pricing depends on various factors to competition moves and stuffs like that, but yes, a reasonable portion would be passed on. So we have not finalised yet the diesel prices of BS-VI but we should be doing it in the next few weeks.

It will be significant?

A: It would be significant.

Any specific demands with regard to conventional vehicles from the budget?

It’s basically a question of how do you generate more demand in the economy in general and auto plays a big role in the economy. So if you want to take it into economy it makes sense to focus on the auto sector also. So in the auto sector how do you generate demand? One clear obvious thing which government is aware of and probably contemplating is the scrappage policy.

If you can remove the old vehicles from the road and incentivise people in removing old vehicles – that makes a lot of sense because not only you put the more efficient cars and more environmentally friendly cars on the road but also forces a guy to change his car. So that is the easiest way and the right way of doing it. Governments across the globe have done it successfully, then why can’t we do it?

We have seen a shift in preference towards SUVs, several Chinese players, at least 2 major Chinese players, are going to enter the market, they are going to do their debut at Auto Expo. Do you think the SUV space will see intense competition this year?

I will talk about the global players in general who have just entered with us and who are planning to enter the market. They also have the same access to the information that we have. So they are also doing the study the way we have done it and more and more SUVs or MPVs are trying to enter the market. But it doesn’t mean that hatchbacks and sedans have gone away. The relative share has gone down but in India when you look for volumes; it’s still hatchbacks; below Rs 8-lakh cars remain a prominent player here. So I think it depends on individual strategy and every company has its own way of entering the market.

MG Motors President Rajeev Chaba on the company’s business roadmap and future of EVs in India

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