Piyush Goyal visits BMW’s EV plant in Germany

India recently announced its ambitious target of having an all-electric vehicle fleet in the country by 2030, and the movement seems be gaining traction.

Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State for Power, Coal, New & Renewable Energy and Mines, during his trip to Leipzig between May 29-June 1, visited Europe’s largest applied R&D organisation, the Fraunhofer Institute, and BMW’s electric Vehicle manufacturing facility. 

In Leipzig, Goyal studied the EV charging infrastructure that included public fast chargers, normal chargers at home, as well as multifunctional street pole chargers that incorporated CCTV and Wi-Fi infrastructure. The city incentivises EV owners by providing free electricity, a policy similar to that of Tesla Motors, and one that can be implemented in power-surplus states in India. 

A number of innovations were explored for further collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute, in areas like electric mobility (storage and retrofitting buses) and industrial data space. An invitation to collaborate with IIT BHU, Mumbai or Chennai was also extended to further help in the mass production of charging stations. 

The minister also visited BMW’s electric vehicle manufacturing facility that has a production capacity of 30,000 EVs per year, which uses a simple procedure of gluing together the body shell and drive (battery and motor). The facility currently produces the i3 and i8 series of EVs. 

Being one of the largest producers of solar power globally, India has increased its green power capacity to more than 100GW, including hydro and nuclear. The improvement in power generation and the push from the government has made Indian and global OEMs bullish on the EV segment in the country. Currently, Indian OEMs like Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra are the only players actively engaged in the electric commercial vehicle and passenger vehicle segments respectively.

Also read: Mahindra Group looks to make the most of India's new focus on electric mobility