FAME Catapult For Local Lithium-Ion Battery Manufacturing: Exide, Amaron Among Others Roll Out Plans

Companies including Exide, Exicom, Amaron, Greenfuel Energy Solutions, Trontek, Coslight India, Napino Auto & Electronics, Amara Raja Batteries, BASF Catalysts, Trinity Energy Systems and Versatile Auto have rolled out plans to make lithium-ion batteries locally, Economic Times has reported.

The push reportedly comes after the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) directions that a majority of the incentives under the second phase of Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME) India scheme be geared towards encouraging local manufacturing of Li-ion batteries.

“More than a dozen companies have started importing lithium-ion cells from countries such as China, Taiwan, Korea assembling batteries. The batteries being manufactured locally are costlier, but are superior in quality when compared with Chinese counterparts” the Director General, Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV), Sohinder Gill remarked.

According to industry insiders, e-vehicle sales have been hindered in the past due to high costs and lack of charging infrastructure, thus presenting a huge potential gap that can be filled by local manufacturing.