Tata’s EV unit goes on a mega hiring drive
Recruitment will be in engineering, product development, supply chain, operations, and commercial functions
Tata Passenger Electric Mobility (TPEM) — a subsidiary of Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles — is on a massive recruitment drive as it seeks to scale up its electric mobility business in a big way.
“We are going for a huge ramp up not only of new talent but also upskilling talent within the organisation. The number of people we plan to hire is going to be big — not in 100s but in 1000s,” Shailesh Chandra, managing director, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles and TPEM, had told Business Standard last week.
The company has a plan to increase electric vehicle (EV) volumes over four times from 19,000 units in FY22 to 80,000 units by the turn of the current financial year, as reported by Reuters. The firm is upbeat that electric vehicles will account for more than 30 per cent of its passenger vehicle (PV) sales by 2030.
On Friday, TPEM’S first-born electric concept, Avinya broke cover. The model promises a minimum range of 500 kilometres and advanced technology features, aimed at buyers in India and abroad.
TPEM, the newly-formed entity, may also consider a separate dedicated sales channel for EVS once the volumes reach critical mass and throughput is large enough for dealers to be profitable, said Chandra.
Elaborating further on the hiring strategy, he said, “We will hire from everywhere — wherever talent of the required competency is available.”
The hiring will be across functions including advance engineering, product development, supply chain, operations and commercial functions at different levels.
This would include recruiting those with engineering background, strong domain knowledge and experience in these functions.
Other companies, including Mahindra and Mahindra, Ola Electric, Hyundai Motor India, Maruti Suzuki India and a few others may take the same route and build similar capabilities as they firm up their EV plans.
Right now, it's Tata Motors that dominates the E-PV market with 90 per cent share. It sold 2,322 EVS in April against 581 units in the corresponding month last year, the company said in its monthly sales release on Sunday.
TPEM has outlined an investment of $2 billion (~15,280 crore) for developing new vehicle architectures, technologies and the requisite supporting infrastructure.
“Tata Motors is on its mission to decarbonise India, and has managed to give confidence to suppliers and consumers. To cater to the EV business — which still has unknowns, realigning the organisation is a must,” said Puneet Gupta, director- S&P Global.
The company may singlehandedly quintuple the market — next year, sooner than expected, he said. The only deterrent could be battery prices, which have been heading north, said Gupta.
To align itself with the upcoming trend, the Tata group will soon reveal plans to produce battery cells locally.
It is also evaluating plans to make semiconductors in-house to support its EV push, N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, revealed at the unveiling of Avinya on Friday.
The current focus of TPEM, said Chandra, is IP (intellectual property) creation and building new architectures.
Currently, the internal combustion engine (ICE) PV business and TPEM have quite a few joint functions.
For instance, there’s a manufacturing service that is taken from the PV company and the sales organisation also sits in the same company.
“The restructuring has been done to adjust to the new situation where one can support an intense focus and