M&M to supply 1,000 Verito EVs to Bengaluru’s Baghirathi Group

NEW DELHI: Mahindra Electric, a subsidiary of Mahindra & Mahindra has won a contract to supply 1,000 electric Verito vehicles to Bengaluru-based employee transportation company Baghirathi Group for Rs 110 crore, reinforcing its leadership credentials in India's electric-car industry.
The vehicles will be delivered over the next 12 months.

With this contract, Mahindra & Mahindra is likely to more than double its annual volumes to about 3,000 electric vehicle units in FY-19. This contract is significant as Mahindra Electric was a Level 2 bidder in the government’s tender of 10,000 electric vehicles through EESL, where its rival Tata Motors inched ahead of the company.

The Verito EV supplied to Baghirathi Group has been engineered and adapted with specific inputs from the company and it comes with a gen 2 battery, says Mahesh Babu, CEO of Mahindra Electric. The vehicle delivers a range of 140-180 km once charged. Its range is different from the Verito EV to be supplied to EESL.

Thrust from the government of India and higher incentive for EVs through FAME and GST have already generated interest from various fleet operators to use EV as a mode of transport. Mahindra has supplied its EVs to shared mobility specialists Ola and Uber and it has several hundred vehicles running with Lithium Urban Technologies, an all-EV corporate transport service provider.

Mahesh Hariharan, founder director of Baghirathi Group, told ET the company has three verticals -- employee transportation, school transportation and transportation for vehicles on call. The Verito EVs will be used for transportation of staff.

“We have been promoting and encouraging shared mobility, as for us, sustainability is a natural progression. We have been testing the current vehicle for over a year and the product satisfies what we require today. That is why we went for a larger contract,” explained Hariharan.

The Baghirathi vision is to expand its fleet to 10,000 vehicles in the coming 3-5 years from the existing 2,000 and the company expects to have a majority of that fleet as electric vehicles, indicating an opportunity for Mahindra.

On overcoming the challenge of charging infrastructure, Hariharan said: "As an organisation, we are technology savvy and we will have our own charging stations and also rely on those put up by the Karnataka government.”