Ashok Leyland to set up ‘mother EV’ plant in India under UK-subsidiary Switch

(This story originally appeared in on Jun 26, 2021)

Truck and bus maker will set up a ‘mother plant’ in India under its UK-subsidiary Switch for its electric vehicle business.

Switch UK will set up an Indian entity which in turn will put up the plant. The company’s entire electric vehicle business will move to Switch which will also develop EV-specific platforms in buses and electric light commercial vehicles.

Ashok Leyland’s existing EV products like the e-buses it has already supplied to cities like Ahmedabad and Patna will also move to Switch, said Gopal Mahadevan, CFO, Ashok Leyland. “The EV investments for Switch will not come out of Ashok Leyland,” he added.

The company has announced it will spend upto Rs 750 crore on ‘debottlenecking the LCV factories’ and on ‘safety and regulations and residual spend’. “We will fund capex with debt because our debt equity ratio is very low and as of March 31, 2021 we have Rs 2,600 crore of debt on our books,” said Mahadevan.