Mahindra to develop autonomous electric vehicles

Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is utilising expertise from its varied portfolio of companies to produce a range of autonomous electric cars.

Speaking to Autocar UK ahead of last weekend’s 2016 Formula E Championship finale in London, Anand Mahindra, CEO of Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), said that sharing the expertise of each of the company’s brands will be key for it to create products for intelligent mobility, including a line-up of autonomous electric vehicles. He described the merits of each brand, emphasising that their vast differences was a strength, rather than weakness.

“If you look at the future of mobility, having one of the largest IT companies in India [Tech Mahindra] as part of your group, it’s not a bad thing to have. They’re already doing an enormous amount of work with other companies – which we cannot name – on autonomous vehicles. A lot of their technology will go into our cars and our EVs,” said Mahindra.

The CEO said the company's EVs would be badged as Mahindras. Currently, Mahindra’s electric portfolio includes the e2o and the recently launched e-Verito sedan.

“If you look at us as a group, as the world converges, as technology converges, we’re finding that the number of things that we do – whether it’s rural finance in India, information technology around the world or solar energy – we’re finding that the opportunities for doing business are coming at the interface of these companies,” added Mahindra.

Though the Mahindra boss wouldn’t expand further on exactly what autonomous vehicles his brand would be making with its knowledge base, or give any indication as to when we can expect them, the company’s executive director, Dr Pawan Goenka, did at least confirm that the technology would trickle into Mahindra’s other brands, including SsangYong and Pininfarina.

M&M had first spoken to Autocar Professional about its take on autonomous driving technologies, when Dr Pawan Goenka, in an interview in September last year, said that the company had not invested directly on developing autonomous driving technology at that time but was working on concepts which the company has received as entries for its ‘Spark the Rise’ innovation challenge.

"We have received a lot of entries from across India, and we are deciding upon which 2-3 we should take forward into the concept stage, which is part of the innovation prize that we have set aside for Mahindra. But other than that, we haven’t invested a lot in autonomous technology, but we could get involved," Dr Goenka told Autocar Professional.

Earlier this year it was revealed that Mahindra wants Pininfarina to develop an electric supercar. Dr Goenka also said that Formula E is a catalyst to speed up the development of electric motor and battery technology for future models. Mahindra revealed that aside from the marketing benefits, technology was the main reason the company entered the championship.