Barely a year after launching its four-wheeler batteries in February 2007, Tata AutoComp GY Batteries (TGY) has made significant inroads into the automobile battery market in India, both civilian and defence.

This year the company has bagged an order from the Indian Army for 25,000 'green' batteries for its trucks. “We shall be executing this entire order in March-April this year. The batteries are for their medium range trucks and we are hopeful that it’s the beginning of a long relationship with the Indian defence forces,” said Yogesh Dhawan, CEO, TGY.

Dhawan added that his company has also been selected as an official supplier for the Tata Nano though it would not be the exclusive one. The company would also be supplying batteries for the Tata Ace, Indica, Sumo and Safari and currently supplies the Piaggio Apé.

Other prospective customers for its green batteries include companies like ICML (for the Rhino range of SUVs) and New Holland for its tractors.

After the successful launch of its four-wheeler batteries, TGY now plans to set up a plant for manufacture of two-wheeler batteries by end-2009, at its existing site in Ranjangaon, near Pune. From an initial capacity of one million batteries per annum, the production would be ramped up gradually to four million batteries per annum, disclosed Dhawan.

TGY director Raman Nanda added that Tata green batteries have received a very good response from the market. He also announced the introduction of invertor batteries for the household and small enterprise markets.

Since 2007, the company has introduced 23 different kinds of batteries for passenger cars, utility vehicles, commercial vehicles, tractors, two-wheelers and invertors.