Four companies, including Reliance Industries Ltd. and Hyundai Global Motors Co., have won bids to receive incentives under the country's $2.4-billion (Rs 18,100 crore) scheme to build Tesla-style gigafactories that make battery cells, according to three people in the know.
The winning bidders to manufacture a total of 50 gigawatt hours of advanced chemistry cells also include Softbank-backed Ola Electric and jewellery maker Rajesh Exports Ltd., two people quoted above told BloombergQuint on the condition of anonymity.
Ola, according to another one of them, has bid for the maximum capacity of 20Gwh. To be sure, the company on Wednesday had said it plans to set up a 50Gwh of storage capacity in the country.
Reuters was the first to report on the development.
BloombergQuint's emailed queries to Ola Electric and RIL remained unanswered, while Hyundai couldn't be reached out for comment. Shyam Ragupathy, chief executive officer of electric mobility division at Rajesh Exports, declined to comment.
According to the production-linked incentive scheme for battery cells, the selected companies will have to set up their factories within two years. Incentives will be disbursed over a span of five years on sale of batteries manufactured in India.
Last month, the Ministry of Heavy Industries had said a total of 10 companies have submitted their bids under the scheme for advanced chemistry cell battery storage to attract companies to manufacture locally.
At present, battery cell manufacturing is dominated by China and Korea, with companies like Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd., Panasonic Corp., BYD Co. and LG Energy Solution.
In India, too, companies have started working towards battery manufacturing. Exide Industries Ltd. has a joint venture with Switzerland-based Leclanche SA, and it recently entered into a long-term technical collaboration with China's SVOLT Energy.
Amara Raja Group has a technology transfer agreement with ISRO. Tata Chemicals Ltd. is also working on its lithium-ion cell project. Reliance has made two acquisitions—U.K.-based Faradion, a sodium-ion batteries manufacturer, and Lithium Werks that makes lithium iron phosphate batteries.
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