Indian lead-acid battery maker Amara Raja reportedly plans to build a lithium-ion battery pack assembly plant in Andhra Pradesh in the south-east of India.
The move comes amid an upsurge of battery-related activity as manufacturers look to solidify their share of the domestic market for electric vehicle battery packs, which is expected to be worth around US$300 billion by 2030.
According to Livemint, Amara Raja’s new 100 megawatt-hour capacity facility plant is expected to be up and running by the end of the current financial year (March 2019).
The surge of the Indian EV battery market will be aided by the government’s Faster Adoption of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles (FAME) programme, a $765 million initiative that provides incentives for the adoption of EVs.
Ali Izadi-Najafabadi, head of intelligent mobility at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, told Livemint there are currently no commercial lithium-ion cell production plants in India, so “Amara Raja will still have to import cells from manufacturers like LG Chem and Panasonic to assemble the packs.
In August 2018, Amara Raja announced it was investing $120m to expand production lines of lead-acid batteries, itself coming just days after the company opened a new trading base in the United Arab Emirates.
Meanwhile, Exide Industries – the county’s largest manufacturer of batteries – has embarked on a joint venture with Switzerland’s Leclanche to manufacture lithium-ion cells, modules and battery packs in Gujarat.
