Can India Be ‘Atmanirbhar’ for EV Batteries?

India is more vulnerable to global price fluctuations since it depends almost entirely on imports for battery cells. We do assemble battery packs domestically though. A report from the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis says that reasons for the reluctance of Indian companies to manufacture battery cells include unavailability of key raw materials – lithium, nickel, cobalt – and inadequate R&D. It estimates the market size for Lithium-ion batteries to be 116 GwH by 2030.To encourage domestic manufacturing, the government has already launched a PLI scheme to incentivise setting up of 50 GwH of Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) battery storage capacity with an investment of Rs 18,100 crore.“Under the said initiative the emphasis of the government is to achieve greater domestic value addition, while at the same time ensuring that the levelized cost of battery…

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