Switch Mobility is a subsidiary of the Indian Automotive manufacturer, Ashok Leyland. This division of the Hinduja Group is dedicated towards the electrification of the Indian commercial vehicle sector and has kicked in operations in India as well. They have recently introduced electric buses in India which will play a major role in electric powertrain adoption in India in the commercial passenger carrier vehicle segment.
As the demand for commercial vehicles with electric powertrains hai grown over the years even in a country like India, Switch Mobility wishes to be well prepared for their operations and want to achieve their goals by setting up a new plant in India by 2025. For this milestone, they intend to explore and finalise the location of the new plant within the upcoming six months. This new manufacturing facility would cater to the needs of both electric buses and Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) manufacturing.
The authorities at Ashok Leyland foresee India to become the second largest electric vehicle market all across the globe by the end of this decade. Therefore, they plan on maintaining a strong hold over the commercial vehicle sector in the country over these years.
The enterprise aspires to scale up the total manufacturing capacity to over 40 thousand units with electric Light Commercial Vehicles constituting 30 thousand of the total. To achieve this target, Ashok Leyland has also scheduled the launch of the electric Dost and Bad Dost LCV in the early months of 2023. The authorities believe in introducing a full fledged product instead of a soft launch like in the case of Tata Ace EV.
Currently, Switch Mobility manufactures electric buses in one of the dedicated portions of the Ennore manufacturing unit and would take up some space in the Hosur plant for electric LCV manufacturing. With the period of time, the enterprises plan to shift these electric powertrain operations to the newly planned plant once it is established.
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Switch Mobility has managed to gather enough funds as investments from multiple sources belonging to India as well as international sources. These raised funds would be diverted to set up this advanced manufacturing facility. Moreover, the enterprise would also be profited as it falls under the Government's Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme as Ashok Leyland itself promotes the initiative to localise manufacturing in India in the automotive industry.
Switch Mobility has observed the sales patterns in countries like UK and India, and has accessed that it has the potential to become a global player with significant research and development in this sector. Therefore, a large portion of the entire Switch Mobility Team would be deployed in India. As per the plans, the research and development of technologies will take place in India while the adaptation of technologies will be carried out in the UK like picking the 640V architecture from India and adapting it for UK.
One of the big upcoming projects under Switch mobility is the fourth generation of 'Project Odin' which is a commercial passenger career scheduled for an exclusive launch in the European Mobility Expo held at Paris in June 2022. This bus offers a unique monocoque chassis platform equipped with an advanced NMC battery technology and proprietary digital tools by Switch. This project would turn out to be the lightest 12 metre bus on offer in the market thus promising good performance.
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Switch Mobility has grown over the years in India as well with just 60 orders in the initial years to 600 orders amounting to 800 crore this year itself. This massive requirement would also cater to the needs of exclusive double decker buses which have become an icon in the city of Mumbai.
So, what do You think of Switch Mobility's aims and plan of action? Would they be successful to set up a strong hold in the Indian automotive industry? Share your views in the comments section here.
