Vikram Chaudhary talked to Vivek Srivatsa, the head of Marketing, Sales & Service Strategy at Tata Passenger Electric Mobility Ltd on company’s electric car plans. Excerpts:
What is Tata Motors’ share in electric car sales in India?
We have about 83% market share right now.
Will 2023 be the year when electric mobility finally takes off?
I think 2023 will be the breakthrough year for electric cars. In 2022 itself, electric car sales volumes touched more than 5,000 units per month (of which Tata Motors did more than 4,000 units). Now, with the market availability of the Tiago EV (India’s most affordable electric car), electric car sales can reach fairly large numbers. More EVs on the road lead to a positive word of mouth, and theoretically higher demand.
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What are the booking trends for the Tiago EV?
Customers have started realizing that for their daily urban run a car such as the Tiago EV is the right fit. Most of the bookings have come from metro cities for the Medium Range variant (where there is usually a closed-loop driving radius for most commuters).
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We’ve received about 20,000 bookings of the Tiago EV and about 25% of these are from first-time car buyers, which is surprisingly high. Also, almost 28% of the people we spoke to said that they did not consider any petrol or diesel car, but only an EV. And the Tiago EV is the only car that fitted their requirements.
How many cities are you selling electric cars from?
Right now it’s more than 170 cities, and very soon (in a matter of weeks) it will increase to 250 cities.
