By Aditi Shah
NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Nexcharge, a joint venture between Indian battery maker Exide Industries and Switzerland’s Leclanche SA, will scale up production at its lithium-ion battery plant to 100% within four years, the company’s CEO said on Friday.
The plant, where it started mass production of batteries on Thursday, is currently operating at 30%-40% of its total installed capacity of 1.5 Gigawatt hours (GWh), Chief Executive Stefan Louis told Reuters.
“We have capacity to meet customer demand for the next few years,” Louis said, adding that the company is on a “fast-track” to cater to demand from the mobility and utility sectors.
Nexcharge said it has so far invested 2.5 billion rupees ($33 million) in building and setting up the plant, which also has a cell testing lab.
The push by Nexcharge comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is giving billions of dollars in incentives to companies to build clean cars and their components, including batteries, locally.
Electric vehicles and clean energy are critical to India meeting its carbon reduction and climate change goals.
($1 = 76.2826 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Aditi Shah;Editing by Bill Berkrot and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
