The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.
(Questions from industry analysts are provided in full, but answers are omitted - download the transcript to see the full question-and-answer session)
Question: Pramod Kumar - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division - Analyst
: Pramod here from UBS. Congratulations again to the team. My first question is on the electric vehicle side. If you can just help us get an update on
the demand for XUV400, where are we on the capacity ramp-up side there? Because you clearly want to accelerate your plans on EV. And how
should one look at the potential investments, which you may have to do given what's happening on the private equity side? And on the side note,
if you can help us get a update on the BII rescheduling of the payment? The money was supposed to come in. I think it's got rescheduled if you
were to believe the media reports. So if you can help us understand that first.
Question: Pramod Kumar - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division - Analyst
: Okay. And then on the demand update on XUV400, the performance, the customer feedback, anything which you want to share there?
Rajesh Ganesh Jejurikar - Mahindra & Mahindra Limited - Executive Director & CEO of Automotive and Farm Sectors & Member of Group Exe
Board
Yes. So we had orders of more than 20,000. We've sold about 3,000-plus so far since we started deliveries in March. Customers who bought it are
very happy with the product, especially the drive feel is excellent. There is feedback on need to improve the infotainment screen and interior switch,
I guess all of you know, we will do that as we go along.
Right now, by way of ramp up, our focus is on going slow because we want to -- it's the first time we are doing electric vehicle of this kind. We want
to go slow, make sure we stabilize quality. So we're going slow. We expect to back-end the supplies to the second half of the year. So at the moment,
we are producing, but we're -- for the next 2, 3, 4 months, we want to stay at about 1,000-odd a month and not ramp up very first.
Question: Pramod Kumar - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division - Analyst
: And our electric SUV -- BEV SUV pipeline remains intact or are we going to be accelerating some of them with the additional investments that we
are making on the EV side? Any plan to do that? Because the reason I ask that is diesel is increasingly coming under regulatory -- as in it's already
under the regulatory microscope, but I think there's more scrutiny. There are -- you would have seen that some panel recommendation that there
should be a ban on diesel cars and all of that. So there's a lot of confusion. So I'm just trying to understand is there a need for us to accelerate our
BEV switch over because of the -- because of our diesel heavy portfolio?
Rajesh Ganesh Jejurikar - Mahindra & Mahindra Limited - Executive Director & CEO of Automotive and Farm Sectors & Member of Group Exe
Board
Yes. So on the panel recommendation, there is a clarification from the ministry that is there is no view that they have on it yet. And hence, I think
it was nothing more than a recommendation with many panels make it at this point of time. So I would personally overreact to that panel report.
And if something was to happen, I'm sure there'll be a time line. We don't see anything happening in the immediate short run along those lines.
The electric launch plans are on schedule. And we would start producing our first lot of Born electrics towards the last quarter of next calendar year
for launches in early 2025, which is along the schedule that we had announced.
I think one of your questions was, is there any change in our product plan based on the additional investment? So Manoj partly spoke about that,
Pramod, but basically, when we had put those numbers out in 2021, we didn't have a clearly laid out product road map. It was, okay, we need to
invest this kind of money in electric. After that, we got into a sharper definition of we're going to create an inflow platform. This is what going to
be spec at. These are the top pads that are going to come on it. all of that. Now when all of that is costed, we have a new number. And that new
number over F '22 to '24 is what Manoj shared.
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