Tata starts looking for European battery site
Tata Motors is apparently searching for a location for its European battery cell factory in Spain or Great Britain. In Spain, the Indian manufacturer is considering an industrial site in Zuera near the city of Zaragoza.
P.B. Balaji, chief financial officer of Tata Motors, recently announced the Group’s plans for a battery factory in India and Europe. According to the newsagency Reuters, the latter will most likely be built in Spain or the UK. In Spain, Tata Motors is considering an industrial site in Zuera near the city of Zaragoza, where the company would produce cells for Tata subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover. It is the same location that Volkswagen had considered for its battery cell factory in Spain, before Sagunt near Valencia won the bid.
Representatives of Tata reportedly visited the site in Zuera and started talks with officials of the Spanish and Aragonese regional governments. Like Volkswagen, Tata Motors could benefit from the PERTE eMobility support programme in Spain.
In mid-January, on the sidelines of the Indian Auto Expo in Greater Noida, Balaji said that the localisation of cell production was key to increasing the share of local components in electric cars and would help develop a local supply chain.
Tata is also building a battery cell factory in India. However, details on the production volume and timeline have not yet been given.
Tata Motors said it has sold 50,000 electric cars in India so far and plans to launch ten electric models by March 2026. The company expects electric cars to account for a quarter of total sales by 2025, according to an earlier Reuters report. Currently, the figure is eight per cent, the news agency said. Besides the passenger car market, Tata Motors is also active in the commercial vehicle market. Several large-scale electric bus orders were recently announced by the Indian manufacturer through the Indian CESL promotion – such as over 2,000 electric buses from the West Bengal Transport Corporation and Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation and over 1,500 electric buses from the Delhi Transport Corporation.
The Indian car market is tiny compared to the enormous size of the population. Electric models accounted for just one per cent of total car sales of around 3.8 million vehicles last year. Manufacturers active in this field or about to enter the market include the local heavy-weights Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra as well as the Chinese brands BYD and MG Motors.
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