Anand Mahindra: ‘There is going to be a trinity of vehicular segments going forward.’

The Geneva Motor Show, arguably the most popular automobile show in the world and very electric this year, saw one of the first big-ticket unveils yesterday – the 1900bhp, all-electric Pininfarina Battista hypercar from Automobili Pininfarina.

Speaking at the Battista’s reveal, Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra said that investing in the renowned Italian design house Pininfarina and being bullish on the luxury segment has a critical logic as to how consumer preferences will be driven in a transformative world.

The chairman of Mahindra & Mahindra said, “All of us at Mahindra are extremely excited and in fact feel privileged to be the enablers of fulfilment of this dream.”

Narrating as to why the Mahindra Group is betting big on the luxury vehicle segment, why it has the right to win, and what it brings to the table of this venture, he said: “As far as why we are betting on this segment, well it has to do with the evolution of the future of the automobile industry.”

“There is going to be a trinity of vehicular segments going forward. First of all, at the bottom of the pyramid, we believe shared mobility is the way of the future. As Mahindra, we fully intend to be there as shared mobility vehicles will be electric and autonomous in our opinion. We are the pioneers of electric mobility in India and having introduced and integrated a fully-electric corporate ride sharing venture just last week (Glyd), we are also in our own way, participating in the shared mobility business. So, like any other car company in the world, we are experimenting as we intend to be in that space.”

“The second part of the trinity is going to be lifestyle or recreational vehicles which will express one's personality and will majorly be taken out over the weekends. We believe that those will be SUVs and we are rather bullish in that space given we've been building SUVs for a very long time,” he added.

“But the third part of the trinity will be what we call objects of desire and passion. These are vehicles people will just have to buy. They will have no choice – their heart will tell them to buy. Nothing in the world will disrupt that. There can be no invention that is going to disrupt people from buying things of beauty and things that make their hearts beat faster.”

“That is why we are going to be investing in this segment because at Mahindra, we intend to be present in all three segments,” concluded the Mahindra chairman.

Mayank Dhingra