Reva maker mulls world's biggest electric car plant

The new facility is expected to be over five times the size of its existing facility in the Bommasandra Industrial Area. According to multiple sources, the new facility would have an installed capacity of around 30,000 units to begin with. The facility is expected to be operational in the next two years. An SMS sent to Chetan Kumaar Maini, founder and CTO of RECC, on the matter elicited no response. Maini is said to be currently in the US. "There have been a number of research findings that indicate that by 2015, around 5% of the total car sales in the country would be of electric vehicles. Hence, we need to scale up in order to ride the growth wave,'' said a company source. Globally too, climate change concerns have sharply increased the appeal of electric cars.

India's electric car market is already showing signs of hotting up. The Tamil Nadu government recently allotted 100 acres of land to Bavina Cars India to set up an Rs 300-crore electric car manufacturing facility, with a capacity of 25,000 units. Chennai-based Bavina is expected to be assisted by Chinese manufacturers. RECC currently produces two variants of electric cars that have a 2+2 (two adults and two children) seat configuration. The cars have a nominal range of 80-120 km per charge at top speed. The company recently announced plans of fitting solar power panels to harness the sun's energy and increase the range of the cars.

RECC plans a four-seater sedan (which would comfortably seat four adults) by the end of this year. The company, whose cars are mostly exported, also manufactures golf carts and electric buggies that are used at large corporate campuses. Even the Karnataka government plans to source such electric buggies to ferry ministers from the old assembly block to the new assembly block, which takes 10 minutes to cover on foot.