Envision AESC, the Japan-headquartered global battery cell supplier, is the lead contender amongst a multitude of potential partners, including LG Chem, CATL and FinDreams, that the Tata Group has explored as part of its ‘Project Apollo’ over the past year.
Autocar Professional‘s website learns the new battery venture is likely to be steered by Tom Flack, the former sourcing head of Tata Motors who has been made in-charge of Tata Agratas, a specially formed battery cell manufacturing company. This project is likely to involve multi-billion dollars of investment and will be run by a separate arm, which may eventually bring private equity money to fund significant capacities.
In the United Kingdom, the Tata Group has already committed over 4 billion pounds of investment to set up a 40GW global battery cell gigafactory. The salt-to-software group is likely to invest over Rs 50,000 crore to Rs 70,000 crore before the end of the decade in battery manufacturing capacity.
The core of discussion with Envision AESC is around high-powered NMC cells for JLR, but the Group is also exploring solid state batteries.