Forbes India – Young car buyers are conscious about safety and the environment: Tata Motors’ Shailesh Chaudra

“We must do our best to accelerate electrification, because that’s the future, and that’s all that the nation needs,” Shailesh Chandra MD, Tata Motors.

Shailesh Chandra is the managing director of Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Limited & Tata Passenger Electric Mobility Limited. He is leading the company through one the most disruptive periods of the auto industry, with the advent electric mobility.

Edited excerpts of the interview with Storyboard18s Delshad Iraniani.

Tell us all about Nexon, the brand that is the star of Tata Motors’s portfolio. Also, tell us about its overall growth story.

Our growth has been driven by Nexon, a brand. We have noticed a trend in our SUV portfolio that is stronger than other segments. Customers used to look for rational and practical aspects in products. A car today is an object of self expression. They are more conscious of safety and the environment than their peers, with 60 percent of them being younger than 35.

We have thus focused on three brand pillars to ourselves: safety, design and the right balance in features and driving electrification across the country.

Nexon holds all of these values.

The Tata brand name is a significant and heavy one. Which brand are you referring to? Are they buying a Tata car or a Nexon?

There were once cars like the Tata Nano or Indica, and they evolved into a fleet model. Now you have brands like Nexon, Harrier, Hexa and Nexon and suddenly you’re an affordable and stylish SUV brand. Let’s take a look at the evolution.

We also saw that SUVs are becoming more popular than ever. SUVs also perform better on Indian roads, due to their higher height and greater ground clearance.

Where is the growth coming form and where will it go in the near-term?

Your view: What are the biggest obstacles to selling an electric future to Indians. How do you plan to overcome these obstacles?

In the world of ICE, there are approximately 120-140 options. However, EVs offer only a few options. There are fewer options in terms of body styles, pricing, and affordability.

The second aspect is that charging is complicated and fraught with myths. Based on all the cars we have sold in EVs, 96 percent of people charge at home.

Awareness is needed about this. Public charging is not required in the city. It is a problem for highways. To make it more practical, you will need more chargers.

With home charging solutions now available, the first or primary car buyer for electric vehicles used to be 25-30 percent. It is now 60 to 65 per cent for Nexon Electric Vehicles.

To make electric vehicles fly, there are a few things that must be done. These include more options, increased range, greater awareness, and charging infrastructure on the highways. If all of these things are possible, then why wouldn’t you buy an electric car? They are quieter, not polluting and betterYou get a eight year warranty, a higher performance and lower total cost of ownership.

You are still required to sell conventional cars, which can also make it difficult. How do you balance both of these views?

It’s a clear view. We must do our best to accelerate electrification as fast as possible because that’s the future. That’s what the country needs. The problem is that ecosystem development will take time.

Today, there are 100 million cars in the auto industry and 2 million electric vehicles. It will take some time. But you can’t not serve the 98 millions. Therefore, you must produce ICE vehicles.

With the advent of battery-powered EVs, will performance become less valuable? What will you do if you want to be ahead in the EV market?

It is becoming more hygiene, as opposed to making products more expressive and aligned towards digital and tech-savvy users. With all the high-tech features and elements of a connected car, performance will be a secondary consideration. Performance will not be a significant differentiator for certain niches.

How can we continue to lead the charge for electric vehicles? We are moving fast, but in a firm and certain manner. We have already announced that nearly $2 billion will be invested in the next 5-6 year with 10 products.

We would love to hear about your accelerated retail strategy for southern markets. How does that work?

We have seen rapid growth over the past two years, and we have set ourselves high goals to continue that pace.

We have added approximately 250 outlets in a single year, and we plan to add more outlets in 2022.

What makes the South market stand out in your eyes?

Each region is unique. CNG is a major source of energy in the North and West. There is more demand for SUVs in the south. We have seen a lot of growth in states such as Kerala, not only for more SUVs but also for electric and smaller cars like Tiago. In certain states, SUVs perform slightly better than others in the southern markets. In markets like Kerala, Nexon and Altroz are doing very well.

For example, EVs are doing very well in the South in Karnataka, Kerala, and Hyderabad, which saw a huge explosion in EVs.

Do these markets have more maturity?

This is why there are so many startup folks and more conscious consumers

Yes. Absolutely. Moreover, doctors are often among the EVs’ buyers.

What are the exchanges between JLR and your business? Who learns from whom?

Both of us learn from each other in different areas. We have identified areas where our strengths can be shared. The Nexon EV was our first high-voltage electric vehicle. We weren’t sure of the design decisions we had made. We thought it would be a good idea to have the design critiqued by JLR engineers, who are more experienced and have been on this journey for years.

We sat them down for a week or so to get their design critiqued. Although it is not an easy task for engineers to have their designs critiqued, we did it for our selfish interests and gained some very valuable insights that we implemented. We have had many exchanges since then: We share the environment in which electric vehicles operate in the country, what decisions we make, and what data we collect from the field. All these exchanges are what made Nexon EV a mature product.

We are also closely involved in what we call electronic and electrical architecture, which is designed to support future technologies such as autonomous driving and connected cars more seamlessly. These are areas where we are exploring partnerships. This allows us to learn from each other. We have explored many more options. There are also hits and misses.