January 22, 2024
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Tube investments to enter EV space
Chennai based Murugappa Group company: Tube Investments of India (TII) is all set to expand its presence in the electric vehicles segment through a series of launches in the coming months. TII is making the EV moves through its subsidiary TI Clean Mobility Private Ltd (TICMPL).
The launches include a three wheeler cargo, rickshaw, tractors and four variants of electric heavy commercial vehicles (HCVs).
This electric vehicle expansion by the Rs. 74,200 crore conglomerate, the makers of iconic BSA and Hercules cycles, comes months after it entered into the segment.
The company at present has an L5M or passenger category three wheeler, which has a 32 per cent market share in South India, under the Montra Electric brand and HCV under the brand name Rhino.
“ We are not just going to remain with L5M in three wheelers, we are going to come up with a Cargo version in the next three months, followed by e-rickshaw,” said Kalyan Kumar Paul, managing director – TICMPL.
In the three wheeler segment, the company is planning to aggressively foray into performing markets – including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Tripura, Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir.
According to Paul, these states account for 70 per cent of the industry volume and it is appointing dealers in all these key markets.
At present, the company has 47 dealers (42 in the South) and has set a target of having 75 dealers by the end of this year. On the other hand, tractors are under the process of homologation (certificatiand the product will hit the markets by the April-May period of 202425. “In tractors, we are in the process of homologating our first product, which is a 27 horse power equivalent.
We are currently building the prototypes for field trials and for homologation. It will be with the brand name of Montra.
In the small commercial vehicles, we are building the prototypes, testing the alpha vehicles on the road, by April or June of next year, we should be in the market,” Paul added.
As far as trucks are concerned, the company already has a customer base and trials have been done.
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