Bajaj Auto have just announced a new electric vehicle manufacturing unit in Akurdi, Pune, with a first vehicle roll-out slated for June 2022.
This new manufacturing facility is a Rs 300-crore project that will capacitate the building of half a million electric vehicles per year. Work has already commenced at the manufacturing unit which is the original site for the Chetak factory at one point. This plant will employ in and around 800 employees.
But, there is more to this story, as Bajaj Auto have made a strong statement towards electric vehicles. Currently, the company are only working on one more platform for conventional combustion engine motorcycles. All the rest of the company’s research and development will be carried out towards electric vehicles. That is quite a statement from one of the biggest two-wheeler manufacturers in the world.
Speaking about the new unit, Rajiv Bajaj – Managing Director, Bajaj Auto said, “In 2001 Bajaj 2.0 took off on the roaring Pulsar, in 2021 Bajaj 3.0 arrives on the charming Chetak. Going forward, for the Bajaj portfolio, except for implementing one state-of-the-art ICE platform that is currently under development, all our R&D drive train resources are now laser-focused on creating EV solutions for the future. This alignment reflects our belief that light Electric Vehicles for sustainable urban mobility is an idea whose time may finally have come. Thus, this investment at Akurdi completes the virtuous cycle of hi-tech R&D competencies, high-efficiency engineering capabilities, world-class supply chain synergies, and a global distribution network which should leapfrog us into a market-leading position in EVs in India and overseas.
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