After giving up on its joint venture talks with Ford, Mahindra & Mahindra will now reportedly focus its resources on developing its core portfolio of SUVs and electric vehicles (electric versions of said SUVs).
According to company deputy managing director Anish Shah, Mahindra will mainly build large SUVs for its core India market in the short term, before moving to electric power in the medium term. “We are going back to our core,” said Shah in an interview with Reuters.
“We are going to look ahead at how we can accelerate our investment in electric and really start moving to the new age. We clearly hold the ambition to be a global brand and there again the electric journey is an important one,” stated Shah.
With the Pininfarina Battista as a starting point, Mahindra will look to develop more EV platforms in India for SUVs aimed at both local and export markets. The Indian carmaker will invest the money it had planned for the Ford joint venture in electric mobility, although they remain open to collaborating with Ford somewhere down the line.
The two companies wanted to jointly develop cars for emerging markets under the Ford badge, but Mahindra eventually pulled out of the talks after initially planning an investment of about 30 billion rupees ($410 million).
Other future plans for Mahindra include ditching its South Korean unit Ssangyong Motor (now in search of a potential investor) in order to focus on profits.
Mahindra sold nearly 190,000 passenger vehicles in India in the last fiscal year, cornering roughly 7% of the market.
