Ashok Leyland ties up with Sun Mobility for electric vehicle development

Auto manufacturing giant Ashok Leyland came into a strategic alliance with Sun Mobility for electric mobility solutions, spurring the auto major’s stock price on the bourses in intraday trade on Wednesday.

Sun Mobility is promoted by Chetan Maini, Founder of Reva, India’s first electric car maker and Uday Khemka, the Vice Chairman of SUN Group. While, Ashok Leyland is a pioneer in electric buses, hybrid buses including both CNG and diesel type, as well as vehicles that don’t require plug-in.   

The strategic partnership of the two companies- Sun Mobility and Ashok Leyland is likely to give a boost to the country’s innovation and engineering spree, equipping it towards developing a world class electric mobility solutions.     

Aiming to be the leading universal energy infrastructure and services provider for increasing a mass usage of electric vehicle, Sun Mobility has plans to incorporate an open-architecture ecosystem around their proprietary smart batteries that are powered by renewable energy. The company has also planned on establishing a network of convenient interchange battery stations to refuel electric vehicles at a lower cost and better speed than diesel/petrol pumps.  

The evolutionary product from this partnership approximated as worth Rs 100 crore is expected to be launched in the next 12-18 months, while the prototype is expected to be out by coming January.  

The partnership has come at a time, when the markets at large are studying the life of non-renewable sources of transportation and experts are expecting a shift in the consumption pattern of auto markets to electric vehicles by 2030.