India’s Reva plugs in to green market

Publication date: 15 July 2009

A Bangalore-based company is planning to build the world’s largest factory for low-cost, purely electric cars in an attempt to introduce green energy to the subcontinent’s rapidly growing automotive industry.

Reva Electric Car Company, whose small hatchbacks are driven by eight six-volt batteries, is investing Rs300m ($6.1m) in a plant that will have annual capacity of up to 30,000 units after it begins production in the first quarter of next year.

The Reva sells for Rs350,000 in India and £7,500 ($12,200) in the UK, where it is sold under the G-Wiz brand, far less than most international rivals.

“We are promoting a technology that holds the key to the global energy crisis,” said Chetan Maini, deputy chairman and chief technology officer of Reva.

The emergence of the tiny car in India’s Silicon Valley comes as domestic conglomerate, the Tata Group, releases the world’s cheapest car, the Nano, whose price starts at Rs100,000.

As its car market grows, India is becoming a centre for low-cost automotive engineering, but the Reva represents the first attempt at commercial mass production of a green car.

Reva, which was started by Mr Maini, his father Sudarshan Maini, and US inventor Lon Bell, last year, sold 500 cars, mostly in the UK and India, and plans to sell 2,000 this year. It has sold 3,000 cars since it began production 2001.

The vehicle seats two adults and two children and is powered by a three-phase AC induction motor that produces rapid acceleration.

It has a range of 80 kilometres per charge using lead acid batteries, or 120 kilometres using lithium ion technology.

Mr Maini said the age of the electric car had arrived, with more governments offering incentives for greener transportation.

“For the first time, we are seeing heightened environment awareness. President Obama and governments in Europe are offering different subsidies,” he said.

The company, which employs 350 people, expects to produce large numbers of the car at low-cost because electric cars have about a fifth the number of components of petrol-driven cars.

The Reva plugs into any 15-amp power point, but critics say India’s customers could be deterred by the lack of public charging points.

Mr Maini believes that in 15 years electric cars will outnumber conventional cars, but analysts say Reva may need to find a large partner in the conventional automotive industry to become a mass consumer item.

Source: The Financial Times