Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. today matched Tata Motors Ltd.'s bid in the first phase of a government contract to supply 10,000 electric vehicles.
M&M qualified after it agreed to match the lowest bid price offered by the Tata Group company for 150 of the 500 vehicles that will be delivered in the first phase, Saurabh Kumar, managing director of Energy Efficiency Services Ltd. told BloombergQuint. The remaining 350 vehicles will be supplied by Tata Motors.
Tata Motors and M&M had emerged as the lowest and second lowest bidders respectively in the first phase. The Mahindra Group company will have the option to supply up to 40 percent of future orders if it agreed to match the price quoted by Tata Motors, Kumar added.
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The PSU, a joint venture of the companies under the Ministry of Power, and the Government of India, had floated the tender to procure 10,000 electric vehicles to replace the existing fleet of petrol- and diesel-run vehicles being used by the central government and its agencies.
As part of the tender, Tata Motors will supply an electric variant of its Tigor compact sedan, while M&M will supply its Verito compact sedan.
The price of the vehicles would remain the same for the entire order, Kumar said. A new phase will be opened every month, in order to procure the total quantity of vehicles over the next nine months, Kumar said. Delivery in the first phase is to be completed by November 1.
The government is pushing for a shift to electric vehicles across the country as a part of its plan to move to the cleaner fuel by 2030.
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