Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone.

From Exide Industries, we have with us MD and CEO Mr. Avik Roy, Director Finance and CFO Mr.

Manoj Kumar Agarwal, President and Legal Corporate Affairs, Company Secretary Mr. Jitendra Kumar, and Prasant Saraswat, Head of Investor Relations.

Before we proceed, there's a disclaimer for the call. Few statement made by the company's management in the call may be forward-looking in nature, and we request you to refer to the disclaimer in the earnings presentation for further details.

We will start the call with a brief opening remarks from the management followed by Q&A session. I would now like to invite Mr.

Avik Roy for opening remarks. Over to you, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you, Aditya. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to you all to the Exide earnings call.

Let me begin with the operating environment, followed by our financial and business performance, and I'll end with the progress of our advanced chemistry gigafactory. India's demand environment remained supportive during the last quarter.

The improvement in affordability and consumer sentiment following GST rationalization, which happened in second half of last year, continued to support the automotive and other consumer demand. Sentiment in both rural and urban markets remained positive, and the replacement market demand stayed robust.

On the cost side, the environment remained challenging. Input costs remained elevated during the quarter, largely reflecting disruptions in West Asia and adverse currency movement.

While lead LME prices in USD terms remained largely rangebound, adverse movement in the rupee against US dollar continued to put pressure on input costs. The company has taken calibrated price adjustments to partially offset the impact, while continuing to keep a close watch on the evolving commodity and currency environment.

Against this backdrop, the company delivered a strong performance during Q1 27. All major businesses recorded double-digit growth, led by two-wheeler and four-wheeler OEM, home UPS, solar, two-wheeler and four-wheeler replacement business, industrial infrastructure ex-telecom, and even exports.

This resulted in a standalone revenue growth of 17.6% during the quarter. EBITDA stood at ₹655 crore, up 19.5% year-on-year, with EBITDA margin at 12.4%.

The margin expanded by 20 basis points on a year-on-year basis, and by around 70 basis points on a sequential quarter. This margin expansion, despite cost and currency headwinds, was driven by higher revenues, cost control through our cost excellence programs, and a very efficient supply chain.

The balance sheet remains strong. We continue to be debt-free and generate healthy operating cash flows.

As I mentioned, Q1 27 was a broad-based growth across our business segments. Automotive OEM business marked its third consecutive quarter of 25% growth on year-on-year basis.

Of course, it is on a low base of last year. This reflects sustained momentum in automotive OEM demand and our strong position across key vehicle platforms.

Home inverters and solar also delivered growth of over 20% year-on-year, aided by a strong summer season demand and focused market initiatives. Solar achieved its highest ever quarterly revenue of ₹400 crore plus.

Industrial infrastructure, excluding telecom, maintained its double-digit growth trajectory supported by industrial UPS and traction business. However, government tenders remained muted during the quarter, though we expect it to pick up in the second half.

Exports business, on a low base after five consecutive quarters of decline, grew by 20% plus on revenues. We continue to closely monitor the evolving global macro environment, though.

Little update on our lithium-ion gigafactory. At the Bangalore gigafactory, equipment across all four production lines has now been delivered and installed, and the utilities are fully operational.

The milestone I would like to highlight is that our first NCM cylindrical line commenced customer samples deliveries during the quarter. These are the first locally manufactured cells out of the facility.

The LFP prismatic line has also started sample supplies for three-wheeler and telecom applications. We have also, meanwhile, completed key certifications and testing requirements, including multiple BIS standards registrations.

We expect revenue contribution from the Bangalore plant to commence during FY27 shortly. Localization runs through all of this.

What we are building is a genuinely Indian advanced chemistry cell platform: multiple chemistries, multiple form factors, strategic sourcing partnerships for raw materials, automation-led manufacturing, and a global technology partnership. Our cumulative investment in form of equity in our subsidiary Exide Energy stood at ₹4,902 crore as on 31st July, including a ₹100 crore investment made in the month of July.

Thank you very much, and with this, I would like to close my opening remark. I will give it back to the moderator, please.

Yes. Hi.

Thanks for the opportunity, and congratulations on a strong quarter. My first question is on the core business.

Could you just tell the split between volume versus pricing growth in this quarter and if there was any new contract win which added to the revenue? Thank you.

In

the core business, I think volume growth was also double-digit on the segment level, I'm saying, in most of the segments, on major segments, I would say. We had a benefit of year-on-year price correction on the top line, but that only enhanced the growth numbers.

Volume numbers, I can give you some examples of, let's say, four-wheeler replacement was at 10%. Four-wheeler OEM was at 21%.

Two-wheeler OEM was 20%. Solar was about 12% to 14%.

Some of the major segments I highlighted where even the volume growths are also very strong in mid-double digit. There was no contract signed.

I did not get your second question. Was it regarding the new core business?

If there was any new contract signing which contributed to the growth in top line.

No, nothing. This is business as usual.

Great. Just fair to say that even in 2Q, as the base is quite favorable, doing 15%, 16% revenue growth for full year looks fairly achievable, right?

For the full year, I will not be able to give you a guidance, Vibhav, because for two reasons. One is everything is not visible at this moment, how the market will look like.

You have to also understand the base level for automotive OEM for H1 was very low. Actually post-GST rationalization, the automotive industry boomed from last Q3, from October onwards.

We'll have a base effect in second half of this year in percentage terms. In absolute volumes, they are still at a very high level.

I think passenger vehicle has gone from 1.2 million to a 1.4 million level. I think in absolute value terms, it's still at elevated level, but in percentage terms, automotive OEM might go down because of the high base of last year's Q3, Q4.

That's the question to the full year outlook. You have to also understand that quarter one is generally the strongest quarter for Exide historically, because this is the inverter battery season.

This time a peak summer helped us to ride on the demand of inverter batteries. If you recall, we have said this in past that last year we had a early monsoon onset in the Q1.

We did not have that support from the inverter batteries last year. That has also helped in the Q1 performance.

Going forward, inverter battery is seasonal, it will also have its cycles. Yes, to answer, last year our quarter two level, the base was low.

We should be getting advantage out of that in percentage terms.

Got it. That's super helpful.

Now second question is on the lithium-ion business. Firstly, now that you've started the sampling, can you just tell how the yields are looking like and any learnings out of commencing such a big gigafactory?

Yeah. Yeah.

I think things are improving. It's a very complex start-up business when you start up a factory.

Every process parameter has to be measured with benchmark, and we got a pretty strong learning curve and helped by our technology partner, both on the NMC side as well as on the LFP side. It's ongoing.

Yields are improving, but the real yield will be visible when you run the plant at three-shift operation. At sample level, it's very difficult to really test the full yield.

We have all the numbers, but we don't want to declare it, because we know that things are improving. Unless we run it on three-shift basis, we should not be able to know what is the full-scale line yield.

Yeah.

Got it. Just a follow-up on this, when you say revenue will start to come in very shortly, any volume commitments that have come in from the two-wheelers, three-wheelers, and from the other applications so far?

I can tell you that at least we are starting with two lines: one NMC and one lithium LFP. I think we can fairly quickly load these two lines, provided our yields improve.

Demand will not be an issue, because the kind of products we are making, I said this before also, this market already exists. Two-wheeler packs are coming with imported cells.

Two-wheeler market already exists and it is growing by leaps and bounds. Secondly, line three, we will be utilizing for largely three-wheelers, telecom, and other stationary storage.

These markets already exist. Only thing, the imported cell will be replaced with Indian cell.

We don't see a demand-side issue at all, because it's just a switchover.

Yeah. Thank you so much.

This is really helpful. All the best.

Yeah. Sir, good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity.

My first question is regarding the PLI. I do understand that the government's opened up 10 gigawatt hour for reapplication for the PLI.

Just understanding if Exide is pursuing this, any thoughts there?

We're not supposed to tell you our strategy at this moment, Mukesh, but yes, this is interesting. At least, it's a good signal from the government that the government is encouraging local manufacturing.

We are serious player. We are studying all the fine prints of the conditions, and then we'll take a call.

In the first phase, as we have set up this 6 gigawatt hour even without any PLI support.

Right. Okay.

All right.

Understood. My second question is regarding the comments that you just made that, obviously, right now most of the EV auto industry are using imported cells, and that market is ready for you.

How does the pricing work? Despite the VAT that is now there for the Chinese imports, how will the pricing work when you supply these cells?

Because, obviously, you're just starting off this facility, the yields will be lower, utilization rates will be lower. Just trying to understand the margins that you will be able to sell at, at the beginning at least, in the initial phase.

Mukesh, I will maintain my earlier position on this that this is too early for me to comment on margins. On the pricing side, I can tell you, so far the export VAT of China has been reduced from 9% to 6%, by 3%.

This will go away from 1st of January. Actually this whole 9% Right now it is 6%, but it was 9% earlier.

This will go away from 1st of January. That time we will see the impact on the imported cell landed cost, given the currency situation.

Today everything has not extended. The entire VAT rebate has not been taken off.

It's still there. From 1st of 1st of January, or let's say, yeah, 1st of January '27, we will be able to see the impact on its import landed cost.

Other thing which has happened meanwhile, which I'm sure you guys are tracking, is that post this crude oil crisis of Middle East, the EV production of Chinese factories have gone up crazily. Every EV factory is loaded.

Also the battery manufacturers, they are fully loaded to serve the domestic demand. In this environment, of course, they will have less appetite to dump prices or dump the volumes in export countries, since the overcapacities that were there last year, now they are almost fully utilized because of this demand.

These two drivers will watch closely, should work in our favor, and we'll monitor it closely.

Got it. Just lastly, you had mentioned about the summer season this time being better and the inverter volumes being significantly better.

Of our overall revenue, how much would inverter be now for us, the home inverter business, which is having some seasonality? Yeah.

It will anywhere range between 15% to 25% based on the season.

Okay. Got that.

Thank you so much. I'll get back in the queue.

Yeah.

Thank you for the opportunity. Sir, a couple of questions.

Number one, sir, how are you seeing the import duty of lithium-ion cell changing if you can remind us that what is the import duty right now for the cells? Is it at 5% and 20%, that structure, the earlier structure?

In your assessment, how it would change in the next couple of years?

Right now you are right, the cell is still at 5%. Going forward, and this also I have maintained for quite some time, we need about two, three more players, serious players.

Today the whole demand of the electric vehicle battery is around 20 to 25 gigawatt hour in India. Today we have a local cell capacity of, let's say, Exide and a very few small guys.

The domestic capacity is not going to fulfill the demand of the auto OEM. They have to depend on import.

At some point of time, if two, three people significantly ramp up their plans, the quicker the better, if we have about, let's say, 15 gigawatt to 18 gigawatt around local cell capacity, I'm sure the government will take this case of approved list of cell manufacturers or something like that, like they're planning for solar. Similar kind of initiatives we expect from the government.

Whatever conversations we are having with them, the only question is that abhi toh if we put that barrier, then the automotive industry will really have to cut down production or increase the prices of the EV, etc., etc., which is understandable. Therefore, I think a big driver will be some two, three people like us also immediately come on board.

Yeah.

Okay. Fair enough.

Sir, second question is on the two-wheeler EV batteries. You mentioned that FY27, there will be a commercial production.

How many OEMs we are engaging and for how many OEMs do you expect a commercial production to start in this financial year, sir?

We are talking to all the major OEMs, legacy as well as new. About three OEMs, I can tell you, and all these three contribute to about, let's say, 80% of the EV volume of the country.

In all the three places, we are in the homologation process. Of course, we'll not get 100% volume to start with.

We will be another supplier possibly. These customers fairly cover about 80% to 85% of the Indian market in terms of share of the EV market.

Even if they give us a share, a portion of their demand, I think we will be through. Sir.

That's very good to know, sir. Now final question, sir, on the four-wheeler side, what kind of engagement you are having with customers?

Are they inclined towards sourcing only the cell from you and doing back assembly in-house? Also, are we working on a hybrid batteries for four-wheelers?

Just a little bit of couple of minutes on our traction with the four-wheeler OEMs.

As we have two lines of LFP. One, the first one, we are using now for three-wheeler and telecom and stationary storage.

The fourth line, which is under installation, under commissioning, would say, would have four-wheeler OEM products. The products which we are manufacturing will go to four-wheeler OEM.

Now that our plant is ready and it is making samples, now we see a major interest from many of the four-wheeler OEMs. They're coming to our factories and have started conversation on what kind of readiness we have and what kind of cells we will be producing on the line so that it also matches their future product platform.

Far we did not see much of the interest from the four-wheelers. Far mostly the two-wheeler guys were coming.

Now once we are ready and they also feel that there is a need to have a backup supply, because with all these restrictions and the cost inflation of imports, they're talking to us. We are talking to at least, I cannot name, but at least one, two major four-wheeler OEMs of the country.

For that, the fourth line needs to be commissioned, which will be close to, let's say, end of this year, fiscal year.

Then

we'll make announcements whenever it comes.

Okay. Fair enough, sir.

I'll fall back in queue. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my questions, and congratulations for excellent set of numbers.

Sir, initially, first on the core business, wanted to understand about the price hikes we have taken in Q1 and any other price hikes that we're likely to take in the Q2, and how much of it is reflected in the Q1 numbers, the price hikes?

I can tell you on Q1, on year-on-year basis, the price correction would be in the range of 4% to 6% across categories. There are multiple segments, there are multiple categories.

It is not uniform across, but around 4% to 6% in various categories, we took price increases. What was your second question, please?

No, this was the first question. Any further price increases we're planning to take in Q2?

We will take a call as it comes. At this moment, we have not made a decision for quarter two.

We are closely monitoring. As in the past also, we have not taken corrections in one shot.

We have taken as and when the input cost went up, on a dynamic basis, we took 2%, 1%, 2%, step-by-step we have taken rises. We will probably do the same in quarter two also.

At this moment, we are watching.

Okay. Secondly, sir, in the case of lithium-ion battery, sir, we would like to get an understanding about the revenue potential consider three years down the line of What

potential?

The lithium-ion battery cell.

Which potential? Down for three years?

Lithium-ion, the new battery plant. What could be the revenue potential from there?

Just want to understand the potential from there three years down the line or five years down the line.

I can only say that in rupees terms, it's very difficult to say because it depends on commodity prices and etc., etc. But 6 gigawatt is our capacity of phase one, and we have a provision of going to 12 gigawatt in next few years when the demand picks up.

That you put a number around that gigawatt hour, and that should be our revenue, depending on the commodity prices of that time. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you, sir.

Hey. Hi, sir.

Thank you for taking my question. On the lithium-ion side, can you please help us refresh the amount of subsidies that we will be receiving over the next, say, few years?

No, this amount is not in public domain. I'm sorry.

Very soon, the rule is the moment you officially declare your start of production, we are entitled to apply for it. We will be doing it shortly.

If we make a public disclosure, probably we'll get to know, but as of now, this number is not in public domain, I'm sorry. As I said, the milestone is that we'll have to declare start of production officially and then apply for it, submit the application.

Okay. Also on the tech side, you mentioned that you're working on NMC as well as LFP.

Are we also working on sodium-ion, and is there a tech partnership there as well? Not at this moment.

Not at this moment. This is big enough for us.

India has to learn lithium first before going to sodium. Still in India, there is zero knowledge on lithium, I think we have to master this first.

We are finishing our learning curve, then we'll think of any other chemistry.

Okay. That's it from my side.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thanks for taking my question. The first question is, some of your OEMs are announcing big capex for capacity expansion for conventional ICE vehicles.

With regard to that, how are you placed on lead acid capacity and what are your capex and capacity expansion plans?

That's a very good question and very relevant question. You're right, and this is what also is a nice problem to have.

As a part of our capital allocation strategy, every year, we keep ₹500 crore, around ₹500 crore for our lead-acid business, sometimes for manufacturing technology, sometimes for automation, and sometimes for capacity expansion. The good part of lead-acid manufacturing is that you don't have to always invest in a complete line, because every machine along the lines have different capacity.

You have to only work on the bottlenecks. We are investing on those bottlenecks, and our utilization is very healthy on the SLI.

We are aware that not only new vehicles, but all this current automotive production, which has gone out in last three quarters, let's say, these are all going to result in a replacement market 2.5 to 3 years from now. We are mindful of that, that it is not going only the automotive OEM volumes, but also the replacement volume will come after 2.5 to 3 months.

We are investing on those lines, particularly in four-wheeler, because in two-wheeler, we still have sufficient headroom, but we are seriously investing in debottlenecking most of our factories. Good thing is that we have total five SLI, five four-wheeler battery factories.

In every factory, we have headrooms for brownfield expansion, we are exploring that.

Okay. Thanks.

Second one is with regard to the lithium-ion. What are your plans for BESS?

What type of cells you want to produce? How much of capacity you want to divert in that direction?

Is that a much easier segment to cater to or it's a much tougher, considering the long life of the product required?

No, no, it's not. Actually, the duty is different.

The application is different. We have a format, LFP format, and for BESS, you need large-format cells.

This I will not be able to give you the exact ampere hour, but it is 300 plus, which is the most popular rating for BESS. That is in the pipeline, that technology being transferred, and the line is getting commissioned.

That's our next step after we commission line one and line three, that line four, the second LFP line will be our next target. We have a product.

Under the product which we licensed from our partner, this is one of the product.

Are the approvals much easier to come through there as compared to the conventional OEM supplies, or how do you see that segment for you to tap?

I think this will have a lower startup time, unlike the OEMs, because OEM homologation time is very long. This is a project-based, tender-based project.

I think the gestation period will be low in terms of validation and the homologation, which is not required here. Anyway, trials we have to do in any case.

Field trials we have to do. Good that there are enough opportunities here where to promote local manufacturers, customer, if he is a government customer even, he can always say that x percentage of the volume has to come locally for field trials, etc.

We'll get some support on the tender this thing also. All of you must know, and I'm sure you have tracked it, BESS is also kind of a getting overhyped now.

People do not actually differentiate between what is core technology and what is peripheral technology. A lot of people are making containers and fabricated tanks, but main technology of battery, racks, and the BMS,

so

that has to be developed. The electronic and software portion also needs to be developed locally.

Yeah.

Sure. Thanks.

Thanks for detailed answer. All the best.

Congratulations, sir, on strong results in lead-acid battery and also the progress on lithium. Sir, on the first question, for the lithium cell facility, earlier you had indicated 25% to 30% utilization for first year.

That remains on track? Also, can you indicate the investment plan for full year FY27?

Yeah.

First is, we stand by that utilization, whatever we have said. As I said, line three, the LFP line will be utilized faster than the two-wheeler line, because shorter time to market.

We stand by that number, whatever. I think the yield also is reasonably good enough to reach that number of utilization, what I mentioned.

The second question was? Investment plan for full year.

On the investment, we got an approval from our board for ₹1,400 crore for this fiscal year, but we'll review again based on actual need and we'll let you know. As of now, it's ₹1,400.

Out of that, ₹100 crore has gone in July. The rest will happen in the upcoming months.

Just to clarify, sir, your initial plan was ₹7,000 crore for a total of 12 gigawatt hour. Would there be any change in that investment plan or remains intact?

It might change a bit, plus minus, because dollar rates have changed with most of the machineries are imported, it might change a bit. Second phase will not require as much capex as phase one, because phase one, we have bought the land for 12 gigawatt.

We have put up all the utilities with boilers, chillers, transformers, power substations, all for 12 gigawatt hour. The second phase requirement will be only for the machine, the production machines.

It's not 2x, but much lesser than that. Yes, we might exceed that amount, because now the business case has changed completely with the given situation.

We'll see what it takes, but whatever it is, we'll still fund it from our operational cash flows.

Noted, sir. Noted.

For Hyundai-Kia, the supply will not happen from the initial phase one 6 gigawatt facility, and there a separate line was expected to be set up along with co-investment from Hyundai. Can you indicate any progress there?

That discussion, that activity is going on parallely. It's a It's a, as I said, this is a concurrent project we are running, and this will not come this year, this calendar year, or this fiscal year rather.

It's a co-investment and it will it is not going to be a complete line. It is It could be a half a line, for customization for Hyundai.

Far it is going on. There are delays, of course, there are delays.

We'll let you know when it progresses.

Thank you for that, sir. In FY26, can you indicate how much was the lithium battery assembly revenues for us and whether that business is profitable and you can indicate the range of margin?

Also the growth prospects there.

You mean last year?

Yes, sir, FY26.

I won't be able to give you the exact number. I think it will be very less, ₹100, ₹200 crore of pack business.

Understood, sir. Would be profitable?

I don't think so, no, because there is very less value addition unless you have your own cell. With imported cell, I think it is not long-term viable.

Noted. Noted, sir.

Thank you so much, sir. I'll fall back to the queue.

Yeah.

Thank you for the opportunity. I just had one question.

If you could shed some color on the lithium-ion plant, do we have any approval on the four-wheeler side or on the two-wheeler side, any specific names?

No, no, no. I have been saying this in the last quarter meeting also, and also in this quarter, that we have supplied samples to the OEMs.

They are going through the homologation process, which is a time-consuming thing, and then they will get back to us for serial production. That's the normal process.

This is mainly for two-wheeler and three-wheeler. Four-wheeler, we have not started yet.

Noted, sir. Any other further trajectory on the utilization, as you mentioned it will be 25% for the first quarter, what would it be further?

Two-wheeler, three-wheeler, two-wheeler, three-wheeler, telecom, and other stationary storages, we we are making two lines completely operational out of four lines. Even with partial utilization of this two lines, we should be able to reach 25% to 30% of total factory utilization, depends on the yield what we reach and how quickly we reach.

This year mostly

This year mostly the revenues will come from these products, as I mentioned: two-wheeler, three-wheeler, telecom, stationary. Then going forward, once our other line lines are also commissioned, we will go for battery energy storage and four-wheelers.

Steady-state utilization for '27 would be how much? It's

very difficult to predict, because whether we'll start on 1st of April or 1st of June, that will make a difference. When customers will give approval, all these BESS projects have contractual delivery date, this will all lead to our So I will not venture into a revenue forecast for next year.

As I said, you must appreciate that if we are at 25% to 30% in this year, next year obviously we'll try to take it much higher. Additional information I can give you, that this three-wheeler market, what I mentioned, almost 70% of this market, or 75% of this demand is aftermarket, which means retro fitment of lead-acid e-rickshaw with lithium-ion e-rickshaw, and about 25% will be new vehicles of OEMs.

This market already exists, because this is where Exide already supplies lead-acid battery, and we have our dealer network and the entire channel network for this built. We are only now shifting from lead-acid to lithium.

This market is much faster. This market has a replacement market.

This is an added advantage we have over many new players, because they don't have the network or the channel distribution network to reach out to the aftermarket in e-rickshaw.

Thanks, sir. Thank you.

Thank you. Sorry, I got disconnected previously.

Sir, just wanted to understand in terms of battery pack, we will continue to supply the battery pack even with the lithium-ion battery, right,

for the

lithium-ion battery? Yeah.

Okay. Currently we make around ₹100 crore ₹100 to ₹200 crore in FY26.

No, no,

listen, let's not talk on crores. Let's talk on gigawatt hour, because unit prices neither you know nor I know what it is going to be in future.

All I can tell you that we have a in-house capacity of 1.5 gigawatt hour of pack making. We are adding lines, as well as we are developing a ecosystem, partner model for increasing, augmenting pack capacity.

For three-wheeler, for telecom, we will need additional pack capacity. We are already hand-to-mouth.

Some of the customers will buy cells for two-wheeler, but largely this will be a pack business. Everything we will not do in-house.

We will have a balance of in-house as well as ecosystem, partner model. That is how the industry works.

Sir, in terms of the lithium-ion battery, our current capacity currently in the phase one is around 60 gigawatt hour?

The 25% to 30% utilization for lithium-ion battery, so that is 60 gigawatt hour capacity or 60 gigawatt hour? Yes.

Yes.

Sir, I want to know that as you told that China is removing subsidies on export, how we are going to manage our raw material? As we are sending our samples to the other customers, it's raw material is from China or it's from Indian producers?

No,

no, raw material is still now from China. We are talking to many interested Indian companies who have many of them are listed companies who have plans to invest.

We are doing pilots with them. For India to develop its own raw material sourcing, it will take next 3 to 5 years.

Right now it is from China.

Okay. Any problem on getting raw materials from China?

Right now, no, because these export control announcements of Chinese government does not cover raw material as of yet. It will be from November.

I think they have deferred it. We'll see what to do.

This is not a ban. This is only additional approvals, which is required is a kind of a export control.

As of now, there is no embargo, but November onwards, we will see how to manage it. Probably we have to keep a higher level of inventory so that there are no delays.

Those are operational topics. To meet the customer demand, we might have to stock raw material for a longer period than usual.

We'll try to find out once the operations start.

Sir, my next question is this year we are adding 6 gigawatt of line, 3 gigawatt NMC and 3 gigawatt LFP. We have already provisioned 6 gigawatt of line.

It will be a all 3 gigawatt line again for NMC or 3 gigawatt lithium or all 6 gigawatt of lithium?

The second phase will be mostly for LFP, most likely.

Sir. Sir.

Thank you. I will get into that.

Hello. Am I audible?

Yeah. Am I audible?

Yes, please.

Hello. Am I audible?

Yes, please. Go ahead.

Sir. Sir, so as you mentioned that there are very few domestic players that are in the same market.

Can you just name them, who are all players that are currently in line to launch this gigafactories and serve the same market that we are entering into?

I believe this is your job to find out. I am not going to name others.

If you get information, we would be happy to know what others are doing, how much they have progressed. We have seen some press announcements, but physical progress only you will be able to know.

Sir, I have that. I'm clear.

I just wanted to hear it from you. I can also share those names.

Thank you so much.

No, I'm not comfortable taking other people's names, but I'm sure you are aware of them.

Sir. I'm aware.

I just wanted to. Yes.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

[unclear] for taking [unclear] on this. Sir, my question is specifically more on the raw material component side for the cell manufacturing, and that too, specially on electrolyte, that what strategy are we following?

Let's say, maybe tech partner wants that we use Chinese electrolyte, right? It's [unclear] the cells.

Suppose if there is shipment delay [unclear] electrolyte [unclear] strategy are we following?

I don't think I have heard your question. Was it electrode or electrolyte?

Electrolyte.

I think you have a serious disturbance in your line.

Am I audible?

You can try.

Hello.

Yes, you can try. You can go ahead.

Sir. I was asking that what strategy are we following to source the electrolyte, we will import the electrolyte or we'll use the domestic electrolyte?

At this moment, electrolyte will be completely imported, because we are accessing the established supply chain of our tech partner. We are not trying with untested, unvalidated raw material supplier.

These guys are supplying for many years to our tech partner, and those cells are in the market or in the field for many years, we don't have to go through the vendor assessment and quality assessment of those unknown, untested people. Parallely, we are also talking to one of a large manufacturer, he's also a listed guy in India, you may have seen those announcements.

We are running pilot with them, and probably I can hazard a guess that going forward the first component which can be localized according to us will be possibly electrolyte. That discussion is also going on with a large company, because they seem to be very serious, and they have got the technology, I think.

Got it. Understood.

Sir, one just wanted that initially only for, let's say, 6, 9 months till we stabilize and get the yield, we'll import, and then we'll move to the domestic one. Is it the strategy?

What is that? Did you get the question?

To move to domestic is the strategy.

Yeah. There has to be an ecosystem domestically.

Many people have showed interest, but they would also need handholding by the government to put in that investment. Far, I think, on the upstream side, we have to do a lot of work on the raw material side, gentlemen.

It's not so simple, because we have to put up refineries for lithium if we are serious EV player, which calls for large investments. We need people to make the cathode active material here, need people to make the graphites here for negative.

I think the whole ecosystem has to develop. This takes time, and this needs a lot of handholding by the government.

Got it. Sorry if there is any confusion.

I was asking particularly on electrolyte [unclear] the pilot line we are working with the domestic player, right? When we can see there is a significant offtake?

Let's say, I was particularly asking that suppose initially till we get the yield whatever yield we are targeting. Hello?

I understood, I think. I think all I can tell you that our target, or wish list, you can say, is to go to about 50% to 60% of our bill of material localized in next 2 to 3 years.

That's our road map. That's why we are talking to multiple companies.

I am talking to them both for electrolyte, for positives, for negatives. There are many announcements in the public domain, I'm sure.

We are talking to all of them. If we reach 50% to 60% of our bill of material in 2 to 3 years, we'll be very happy.

Got it, sir. Got it.

Done. Thank you so much.

All the best.

Yeah.

Hello, sir. Thank you for taking my question.

While you have clarified on the export restrictions from China on the raw material side, my question was more on the technology transfer from the Chinese. Actually last quarter, I think one of your key competitor has mentioned that the Chinese government is actively interfering in the technology transfer as well.

My question is, are we seeing any kind of interference as of now? If all to happen, suppose, in future, how prepared are we to develop these things going forward in-house?

Yeah. Good question.

I think we are one of those lucky ones that we completed this all tech tie-up as well as setting up of factory before this embargoes started coming in. As of now, we have licensed four or five products from our tech partners, and we have also parallely now invested in our pilot line.

We have about 100 plus R&D engineers in Bangalore right now, and the pilot plant will possibly come end of this calendar year, as quickly as possible. That is for our future road map.

In case in future we don't get technology licenses or the Chinese government doesn't allow anybody to give technology licenses, at least these four, five products will keep on manufacturing, and parallely we'll develop our own know-how on the other cell formats on our pilot line. Just for your information, I'm sure you are aware, our sequence was that we put the main line first and the pilot line later.

Some people did it in the reverse way. They will be little in trouble because there are a lot of embargoes on machinery exports from China.

They might face some delays in their production lines. Our production lines came first, and pilot lines will come later.

Yeah. Yes, sir, good to hear that.

In future if all that to happen, we can also, I think, explore opportunities with the Japanese or Korean ones, I believe, right?

Sure. Technologically, these are options.

Only thing, they are costlier than Chinese.

Okay. That's all from my side.

Thank you.

Thank you.

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