Mahindra, Tata Motors and Maruti Suzuki will join forces to develop EV and hybrid components. This was announced by Arvind Matthew, chief executive of Mahindra Reva. This move is aimed at introducing a common standard as well as to bring down the cost of an electric vehicles as a whole.
The plan will see common production of the components and standards but separate software development in a bid to bring individuality to the vehicles. It is a common practice nowadays for automakers to form alliance in developing platforms, components and even engines. This helps them share their knowledge pool as well as split development costs.
In India one of the most famous alliances of this nature is the Renault-Nissan alliance which runs a common plant and even cross badges cars. This type of sharing model is also used by Fiat, Maruti Suzuki, GM and Tata with regard to the 1.3-litre Multijet diesel engine. It is present across a range of models in various states of tune.
Coming back to Mahindra Reva, they said that they will launch the electric versions of the Verito and Maxximo pickup in the next few months and are believed to be in talks with various fleet operators to include these cars in their range.