Jyoti Malhotra is the Managing Director of Volvo Cars India, a position he took charge of in 2022. The 49-year-old Malhotra is the first Indian to head the Swedish carmaker’s operations in India. He had joined the company in August 2016. He has over 24 years of automotive experience in sales and marketing and has held national, regional and local positions in various OEMs, including Mahindra & Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki India and Fiat Auto India.
Please share your thoughts on the ICE to EV transition that the automotive industry is going through.
I do not think we can ignore climate change anymore. This is where we, as a responsible manufacturer, have decided to go ahead with this transition. We look at it as the diesel to petrol to electric vehicle transition.
This transition for us is not just limited to electric cars; it goes much better than that. The bigger question is how we design our cars with sustainable and reusable materials. We also ask ourselves if we can reduce our carbon footprint by directly selling to the consumer.
Specific to EVs, what kind of opportunity do you see in the Indian market??
There are a lot of tailwinds when it comes to electric vehicles and that is visible across the industry – two-wheelers to small commercial vehicles, and personal passenger vehicles. For luxury EVs, I think the tailwinds are even stronger.
Customer curiosity, in a very short span of time, has moved from awareness to buying cars. When we launched the first XC Recharge in India, it got sold out in a few hours. How we meet this demand is up to us now.
I think within the passenger vehicle segment, the luxury vehicle market will move faster and stronger. We are very much focused on the online channel, and are developing tools. In fact, we have already started selling XC 40 Recharge via the online channel. Now, we are also ensuring that our retailers take sustainability initiatives. A lot of our retailers have started solar rooftops, for instance. We are also encouraging our customers to not use grid power for charging their cars and shift to solar power for the same.
How much do you think India can contribute to Volvo’s global EV targets?
It is not just about volume. I think India has potential from many other perspectives. Globally, we have said that we want to become a fully electric car company by 2030. I think in India we can do that faster. I think we have early signs, which tell us that we are on the right path.
We are going to bring an electric car to India every year. We launched the XC 40 this year, and we will launch the electric C 40 in India next year. I think by the year 2025, 80% of our car sales and portfolio will be electric in India.
Where does hybrid stand in this overall strategy?
I think the government is nudging everyone to go full electric, and that’s what we want to do. We also believe that electric vehicles are the future. So, we are going to transition directly to battery vehicles, rather than going through the plug-in hybrid route.
Talking of challenges for the future, particularly for EVs, what do you think are the major concerns?
Range anxiety sits among the top challenges for EVs, and associated with the same is another challenge of charging infrastructure. In my view, when you deliver an XC 40 Recharge vehicle with a range of over 400 km, along with a personal charging solution, these challenges get automatically answered.
The other part is people, who are genuinely concerned about the environment. Such people are concerned about where the power to recharge these cars is coming from, like, is it coming from a coal-powered station? That is why we have set up a programme, where we are encouraging our customers to get a solar panel installed.
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