'The Tiago EV is likely to be and going to be a huge volume sort of model'

We caught up with Anand Kulkarni, Product Line Head for Electric Passenger Vehicles at Tata Motors, at the launch of the Tiago.ev

- Kurt Morris

Tell us how long it took you to transform the traditional Tiago into this EV.

When we look at a conversion programme, we are looking at not only trying to strap a battery and a motor inside an existing car because of the mass changes that happen to the car on account of the battery, significant other changes also have to happen; for example, in the front structure, so that it meets the safety requirements. You also have to re-calibrate the suspension. You have to re-calibrate ABS and you have to, therefore, re-calibrate the entire airbag firing, etc, for the deployment of airbags. So, typically, it is for a programme of this sort. It is quite easily something that runs between 20 and 24 months and, therefore, we've been working on it for a similar kind of period, about 18-20 months, and that's how long it has taken us to make sure that all the development parts that I mentioned are all done. Additionally, earlier we used to have this situation or a configuration wherein the batteries used to be assembled outside the manufacturing process.

The Tiago EV is likely to be and going to be such a huge volume sort of model. We've integrated the entire battery assembly and integration on the production line itself, which means that not only are we able to keep up with the higher production rates, but it becomes a much more seamless integrated process so far as we are concerned. So, all those changes also had to be done on the production line in order to get this thing done.

What was the most challenging part of this shift for you?