Two firms from two of the world’s most populous, most polluting countries are in talks about setting up a $2billion lithium-ion battery factory for clean-energy vehicles.
China’s BYD and B K Modi’s Smart Group are said to be “aggressively working” to set up the facility in India, where an electric bus assembly factory has already been built in Uttar Pradesh.
Dr Bhupendra Kumar Modi heads up Singapore-based Spice Global, the umbrella conglomerate that owns the Smart Group.
“Today countries like China have put air quality on the same priority as core sectors like infrastructure and defence and it is about time India did the same,” said Modi.
“The Indian government will have to take bold steps and incentivise citizens and industry players to adopt electric vehicles.”
BYD is massively increasing its production of lithium batteries, in October announcing plans to raise $2.4 billion with a stock issue to fund production.
With a strapline on its website that says ‘we want to be better stewards’, BYD claims concerns about the environment and growing pollution will lead to a widespread adoption of clean-energy vehicles, a trend the firm seems determined to be a part of.
The announcement of the $2billion spend in India comes after an announcement that China has seen its slowest growth for a quarter of a century, with its economy seeing 6.9% growth in 2015, compared with 7.3% the year before.
“India has a huge potential and we feel that this is the right time to consider the launch of electric vehicles,” said Liu Xue Liang, MD of BYD Auto’s Asia-Pacific region.
Picture: Dr Bhupendra Kumar Modi
