In 2017, India started taking baby steps towards electrification of cars. Staterun Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL), a joint venture of four public sector power companies, floated a tender to procure 10,000 electric cars. The idea? Electrify the fleet of cars the government uses. It had estimated that at least 80% of the 500,000 cars used by the government run less than 80 km a day, making them ripe for an electric replacement.
Initially, five automotive companies were interested but, eventually, only three—Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, Tata Motors Ltd, and Nissan Motor India Pvt Ltd—bid for the tender.
Back then, Mahindra had a head start in electric vehicles (EVs). It already had two electric cars on the road, the Verito sedan and the e2o hatchback. Everyone saw the company as a front runner to bag the contract.
So, it came as a big surprise when Tata Motors pipped Mahindra with a bid of ₹11.2 lakh for its electric sedan, Tigor. The vehicle was yet to be launched and the bid was 15% less than Mahindra’s quote of ₹13.5 lakh for the e-Verito.
“It is difficult to comprehend the price quoted by the L1 bidder (Tata Motors), though we have been in the electric vehicle business for some time and we know the cost structure and subsystems very well," rued Pawan Goenka, the former managing director at Mahindra & Mahindra, in October 2017. He was speaking to journalists.
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