Mahindra buys Electric Car Company

By Anthony Crawford | May 27th, 2010

The massive Indian industrial giant Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. has made a key move into the EV world, by taking a majority stake in the REVA Electric Car Company Ltd. Bangalore.

REVA opened its doors in 1994, and is a joint venture between the Maini Group of Bangalore, India and AEV LLC of California in the US.

And while you may not have them previously, the fact is, REVA already has a wealth of experience in the electric car business.

With more than 3,500 EVs on the road in 24 countries across Europe, America and Asia, REVA is responsible for the largest fleet of electric vehicles in the world today.

To date, the REVA EVs have clocked up more than 100 million kilometres of user data making them a real powerhouse when it comes to electric vehicle solutions for the here and now.

In 2009 at the Frankfurt Motor Show the company launched two new EVs the NXR and NXG along with REVA’s own proprietary REVive remote emergency charge system.

When General Motors introduced their own Chevrolet e-Spark at the Delhi Auto show earlier this year, GM’s EV platform was powered by REVA.

It comes as absolutely no surprise that Mahindra chose to partner up with REVO, who as a leading technology company specialising in electric vehicle systems, has won more than its fair share of awards for outstanding achievement in this rapidly growing mode of transport.

The prestigious consulting company Frost & Sullivan awarded REVA their “European Powertrain Company of the Year in 2008 and was named one of India’s ‘Cool Companies” by Business World Magazine. It also picked up the recently awarded Green Car of the Year by a host of high profile media companies including the undisputed leader in India’s business news space CNBC-TV18 and Overdrive (India’s number one car & bike magazine).

Mahindra too hasn’t exactly been loafing about when it comes to green technologies.

They have spent the last 10 years developing diesel hybrid technology for its 4WD Scorpio and Hydrogen powered Alfa three-wheelers.

They also have a fleet of 50,000 micro-hybrids on the road in India and are also developing an electric version of the Mahindra mini-truck, the Maxximo.

We’ll keep you posted on the newly named Mahindra REVA cars, as frankly, they don’t look too bad.

john

That little green car with a turboed Suzuki Hayabusa motor in the rear of it and yes with a hydrogen fuel cell just to keep the enviroment happy.
vid_ghost

First ones not bad but the rest are butt ugly either way its a good replacement for the 1980′s small cars most pov nations drive today.
Vibe

They look like Matchbox cars!

I actually like them.
Shak

I had never heard of thei REVA company before. good effort, and they could teach mahindra thing or two about style as well.
MK

“while you may not have them previously” > typo

and “Mahindra chose to partner up with REVO”…another typo?
Pavan Joshi

Mahindra is a solid, 75 yr. old company with proven customer base. The young scion is broadening and deepening his homegrown market share, as well as fend-off foreign competition.

Therefore, their vehicles are market researched to death. And once they decide to enter the market, they dive into their huge cash pile and buyout small, hi-tech co.’s. They back up thier buy-outs with solid marketing, brush up R&D – specially development, ramp up production and blitz their dealers with siad vehicles.

The money comes from 1/2 million vehicle sales; yup … that’s 1/2 a million! Vehicles meaning 250,000 … hehe … small farm tractors and 1/2 ‘working’ Jeep type variants for the Indian utility vehicles market. Their products are not cheap, nor are they high priced re: India. Globally competitive though thanks to cheaper inputs in India.

This is a rich company. Profitable co. A conglomerate actually. A market, production & distribution driven co. Once their design capabilities scale-up to Global standards (almost there already), and if they can build on their homegrown market-share, the world better watch out. Their # 1 competitor may be in Brazil’s Agrale Marrua, China’s Beijing Jeep (maybe), or Jeep from US if they break-off from Chrysler and return to their rough & rural roots (doubtful).

Rumour is that Mahindra’s got some neat low-cost utility vehicles in the works re: home Indian market. That Indian ‘low-cost’ and all the other stuff they are into can scale up to a million vehicle co. in the next 5 yrs. Their vehicles may already qualify as ‘low-cost’ by Global standards.
Oh they also bought out Korean Ssangyong.