India to become the largest lithium-ion battery exporter in 5 years: Nitin Gadkari

Despite being in the early stages of lithium-ion battery manufacturing, India has the potential to become the largest lithium-ion battery exporter globally by the end of the decade, according to the Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari.

“Within five years, India will be the largest exporter of lithium-ion batteries,” Gadkari said while speaking at the Bloomberg NEF Summit on Thursday. He noted that a lot of research is going on in different types of battery technologies and expressed confidence that the work will get noticed globally.

India is currently in the nascent stages of manufacturing lithium-ion batteries, which is of big importance to electric vehicles and renewable energy storage applications. The country depends on imports from China, Japan, and South Korea for lithium-ion batteries.

India’s battery manufacturing capacity is likely to be in the range of 100-1500 GWh by the end of this decade. The government has rolled out a Rs 18,100-crore production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to set up advanced chemistry cell (ACC) manufacturing facilities in India with a target of achieving 50GWh manufacturing capacity.

Several companies such as Amara Raja, Ola Electric, Exide Industries, Reliance Industries, and GODI India, are setting up gigafactories to manufacture lithium-ion cells. Domestic battery manufacturing is expected to aid electric vehicle adoption and localise the supply chain.

Battery cost typically makes up for around 40% of the price of an electric vehicle. The high cost of acquisition, primarily due to higher battery cost, is seen as a major hurdle in electric vehicle adoption in the country.

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