JSW MG Motor India to invest Rs 5,000 cr, to set up second plant at Halol

Mumbai: JSW MG Motor India will invest Rs 5,000 crore to enhance production capacity and launch one new car every 3-6 months starting September, top company officials said on Wednesday.

The newly formed company, a joint venture between China's SAIC and Indian conglomerate JSW Group will also seek to create a "Maruti moment" in the new energy vehicle segment, JSW Group Chairman Sajjan Jindal said here, while announcing the finalisation of the partnership here.

The joint venture aims to sell one million units of passenger electric vehicles in India by 2030 when the total market is expected to be 10 million units annually.

"We have announced today that we are going to have our second plant in Gujarat near our existing unit at Halol itself," MG Motor India Chairman Emeritus Rajeev Chaba told PTI on the sidelines of the event.

The company's production capacity will go from over 1 lakh per year to over 3 lakh a year, he said.

Asked about the investment, he said, "The total investment from all stakeholders in this space is going to be over Rs 5,000 crore on capacity enhancement and new product introductions." Outlining the roadmap for the company, Jindal in his address said the JSW Group believes in scale when it comes to building capacity.

"We are going to churn the whole industry a lot and we will create some sort of disruption in the industry. Our idea is that we will bring one new car every 3-4 months, six months down the line," he said.

September onwards, he said, "We will be bringing the new cars. We will manufacture them in India not only for India but also export these cars to the most developed markets." "Forty years ago when Maruti came to India, it changed the auto industry. It brought very efficient cars, very lightweight cars and the Ambassadors and the Fiats went into oblivion.

"Maruti brought in state-of-the-art new cars. Today they are the market leader," he said.

"I believe that with MG we can create a new energy vehicle Maruti moment," Jindal said.

JSW MG Motor India is seeking to be the market leader in the new energy vehicle (NEV) segment in India, targeting sales of 10 lakh units annually by 2030.

Speaking at the event, JSW MG Motor India Member of Steering Committee Parth Jindal said, "It is our aim to have 33 per cent of the new energy vehicle segment by 2030. That means we want to sell one million passenger vehicles only electric apart from all the other products that we will sell." Last year in November, China's largest automaker SAIC Motor inked a joint venture agreement with the JSW Group to accelerate the transformation and growth of MG Motor in India.

MG Motor is a British brand owned by Shanghai-headquartered SAIC Motor.

JSW Group will hold 35 per cent of the Indian JV operations. SAIC will continue supporting the joint venture with advanced technology and products to deliver mobility solutions with a focus on the Indian consumer, as per the agreement.

In 2022, MG Motor India announced plans to invest around Rs 4,000 crore on a second manufacturing unit, for which it was in talks with several state governments, including Gujarat, where its first facility is located.

The company, which was looking to expand the annual production capacity of its plant at Halol in Gujarat to 1.25 lakh units, was looking to add another 1.75 lakh units capacity from the second plant and take its overall capacity to 3 lakh units a year in two years.

However, its expansion plans got delayed owing to a funding crunch.

Since its inception in 2019, MG Motor India has invested Rs 7,000 crore and sold close to 2,00,000 vehicles in the country.

In 2023, the company had sold around 60,000 units as compared to about 48,000 units in 2022.

On the other hand, last month JSW Group signed an MoU with the Odisha government for the establishment of an integrated electric vehicle (EV) and EV battery manufacturing project at an investment of Rs 40,000 crore in the state.

The JSW group will set up an electric vehicle, and component manufacturing plant at Naraj in Cuttack district, while it will set up a copper smelter and lithium refinery at Paradip in Jagatsinghpur district.

The project consists of a 50 GWH EV battery plant, EV, lithium refinery, copper smelter and related component manufacturing units.