Mahindra Scoprio, XUV500 To Get All-Electric Variants

Giving a sneak peek into Mahindra & Mahindra’s plans as we step into 2017, Managing Director Pawan Goenka recently revealed that all of the vehicles in the company’s Indian portfolio will receive an electric variant, without the exception of the Scorpio and the XUV500.

“Mahindra would try and bring out at least one electric variant of all the vehicles in the portfolio, including the Scorpio and the XUV500. The company is also working on bringing out an all-electric luxury car under the Pininfarina (the Italian car design company) brand,” he told Hindustan Times. The latter is expected to square off with Elon Musk’s upcoming Tesla range in India.

The domestic SUV maker had introduced its new hybrid technology, called the ‘Intelli-Hybrid’, in the new-generation Scorpio earlier this year, which recycled brake energy to reduce fuel consumption by around 7 per cent. And now, the latest announcement from the company can be considered the next step towards complete electrification of its vehicles. 

With the country’s crackdown against the menace of pollution and the stricter emission norms that are set to be put in place by 2020, various carmakers are looking at bringing similar vehicles to India.  

Toyota plans to bring the plug-in hybrid technology to each of its models, while the likes of Hyundai are also considering upgrading their line-ups in the country in the coming years. Luxury carmakers – including Mercedes-Benz and Audi – too, are getting their hybrid cars to India, but for their battery-technology operated cars to become mass market, the government also needs to up the ante.

Last year, the government had launched the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid) and Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme, offering incentives on electric and hybrid vehicles of up to Rs 29,000 for bikes and Rs 1.38 lakh for cars.

As a result, the sales of vehicles with hybrid technology, like the Toyota Camry (hybrid) and the Maruti Ciaz SHVS (smart hybrid vehicle system) have zoomed up substantially. However, the case for fully electric vehicles needs more work if the government is to achieve its aim of putting seven million electric and hybrid vehicles on the road by 2020 under the national electric mobility mission plan (NMMP).