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India To Witness A Phased Onset Of Electric Vehicles, Says Bosch

The parent company has spent nearly 400 million euros annually in last 10 years in R&D and electric mobility segment, Bosch said.

An employee guides a winch while moving the engine of an automobile on the production line. (Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg)
An employee guides a winch while moving the engine of an automobile on the production line. (Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg)

Bosch Ltd. expects a phased onset of electric vehicles in India, where its internal combustion engine-powered counterparts will remain dominant.

Electric and hybrid vehicles will enter the Indian market in a ‘transition phase’, the company’s India Group President and Managing Director Soumitra Bhattacharya said in an interaction with BloombergQuint. “We expect the two- and three-wheeler segments to make the initial foray into electric, followed by buses and then passenger cars.”

Bhattacharya acknowledged the importance of policy formulation by governments in the future. Bosch’s parent company has annually spent nearly 400 million euros in the past 10 years on research and development and electric mobility, he said. “Our parent firm… spends nearly 10 percent of its turnover on R&D.”

Bosch spent around Rs 460 crore in capital expenditure last year, he said. The company plans to invest Rs 1,700 crore over the next three years in India, including capital to revamp its Bengaluru facility, its group Chairman of the Board of Management Volmer Denner said in June.

He said that the transition to Bharat Stage-VI emission norms will require over four times the effort as compared with that to BS-IV.

At a conference call with analysts in March, Bhattacharya had said: “There is a big challenge in BS-VI—in terms of time-frame and engineering requirements.” He had also said Bosch is well prepared “because of our parent plus a long heritage of India to provide these (the solutions)”. “The company is in pole position as it has made a very good set of acquisitions, including for BS-VI.”

Bhattacharya expects double-digit growth for the current fiscal.