Amara Raja Batteries, is the country’s second-largest automotive battery maker, the company has opened the country’s maiden technology hub to develop lithium-ion cells, at its Tirupati facility in Andhra Pradesh. The advanced lithium-ion technology research hub is the pilot project located at its headquarters in Tirupati, will become the country’s first lithium-ion cell manufacturing facility in the private sector over the next few years, as per Amara Raja Batteries’ CEO, S Vijayanand.
The company had signed a technology transfer agreement with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 2019. Vijayanand, at Amara Raj has invested Rs 20 crores for the hub, and excluding technology transfer and bidding fee stated that this was paid to the ISRO in January 2019, when the company along with nine others won competitive bids from the national space agency. The agreement with ISRO for the lithium-ion cell technology transfer is without any royalty payment. Ten companies that got the technology licence, have to pay only the bidding fees and technology transfer fees.
Despite pushing lithium-ion cell development, Vijayanand feels lead-acid batteries will continue to grow at least for a few more decades and that lithium cells used in electric vehicles will take time to get commercial traction. Currently, the electric vehicle (EV) makers import the cells mostly from China. Electric mobility will be led by three-wheelers and two-wheelers here to begin with, primarily because of the higher cost of ownership for an EV four-wheelers and expected by 2025.
