A feasibility study is currently being conducted on a compact electric vehicle (EV) made for the Indian market by Renault and Nissan.
The Global COO of Nissan Motor Corporation, Ashwani Gupta, has said India has “a big potential for the EV market” because the country has seen EV adoption triple in only a year.
Tata Motors leads the way in the electric car market, but other brands are developing bespoke models to gain a foothold in the fledgling segment.
Renault and Nissan do not want to be late to the party like in the past, which could prove to be a disaster. Gupta says, “Definitely we will be there, give us more time to study…”
The COO of Nissan says while there are a lot of variables to consider when preparing a new vehicle, the company is focusing primarily on three things – product excitement, competitiveness and the ecosystem.
A compact electric car with a range of 400 kilometers would dominate the market
The alliance believes it will overdeliver with its product to satisfy the Indian customer’s aspirations. It says it needs to figure out how to localise the battery and is keeping a close eye on the pace of development of charging infrastructure in India.
The Renault and Nissan compact electric vehicles are expected to be based on a version of the CMF-B EV platform designed for Europe. It is the same platform that will underpin the new Renault 5 and the all-electric successor to the Nissan Micra with a range up to 400 kilometers.
A compact EV for India is expected to be of the same size as the Tata Nexon. One could speculate that the group will focus on a compact SUV due to the SUV’s success in the market.
The Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance will use 4 common EV platforms worldwide to produce 35 new electric cars by the end of this decade, including the CMF-B EV platform. The CMF-B EV platform will underpin almost half of these EVs.