Indian EV makers facing Lithium-ion cell shortage: Report

As fuel-based automakers in India reel under a global chip crunch, the country's electric vehicle makers, too, are now facing a shortage of their own.

Lithium-ion batteries, which power most electric vehicles, are in short supply in India, due to a global surge in demand, The Economic Times reported.

A coal shortage in China and congestion in shipping routes have impacted the supply of Li-ion batteries to India.

According to the report, India sources much of its Li-ion cells from China, apart from South Korea and Taiwan.

Another reason for the shortage is that manufacturers prefer supplying cells to markets that guarantee a higher volume of orders — like the US, Europe and China — which Indian EV makers do not guarantee.

Samrath Kochar, CEO of Trontek Electronics, told the publication that a delay of 10-15 days in receiving shipments from China has become the norm.

In fact, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate, a powder that is used in the making of batteries, has surged by 27 per cent to an all-time high. Additionally, shipping goods from China now costs four times more than it did before the pandemic.

As a result, Kochar's Trontek — which imports cells and assembles them into battery packs to be sold for EV makers — has proposed to hike prices by 5 per cent.

Gaurav Uppal, CEO of electric motorcycles maker One Electric, told ET that the battery shortage can end only if Indian EV makers form a consortium and place large orders. This, he said would convince cell manufacturers to consider India as a serious market.

Should the shortage, clubbed with soaring prices of cells and other related materials, continue to last, it could dent India's ambitions of complete electrification of vehicles from 2030.

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