Preparations are on in full swing for the Global Investors Summit to be held in January next year. Under the aegis of State Investment Promotion Agency Guidance Tamil Nadu, the round of meetings is underway at Prestige Polygon Tower, Teynampet, Chennai. Asked about the highlights of the meeting, V Vishnu, managing director and chief executive officer of the agency, said the government is betting big on electric mobility. No wonder, as the government has signed MoUs (MoUs) on electric vehicles with several companies in the recent past. It can bring an investment of Rs 33,000 crore and also generate more than 43,000 jobs. This includes the announcement by SoftBank-invested Ola Electric Mobility to set up the Giga Factory, the world’s largest integrated center for manufacturing electric two-wheelers, cars and lithium cells, at Pochampally in Krishnagiri district. The move will help make the Hosur-Krishnagiri-Dharmapuri (HKD) industrial belt in northwestern Tamil Nadu an emerging hub for electric vehicles and its ancillary units in India. According to the data released by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA) for February, there are three major companies of electric two wheelers in the country. Ola Electric with 17,647 units, TVS Motor with 12,583 and Ether Energy with 9,982. All are from Krishnagiri district. Of these, two are in Hosur and one is in Pochampally. Apart from the top three companies, at least five other equipment makers are either setting up or have started manufacturing their own electric vehicle units. These include Ashok Leyland and scooter maker Simple Energy. Due to Tamil Nadu’s strategic focus on the EV sector, electric vehicle manufacturers prefer the region to set up their units. Vishnu said, “We are creating a complete ecosystem for electric vehicles in the state. This includes Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), component manufacturing units and charging systems. Hosur and its surrounding areas have a strong component manufacturing ecosystem and this should also include charging.’ Experts feel that this region will create an ecosystem for EVs similar to what Chennai has contributed to petrol engine vehicles. Chennai already houses 30 per cent of the country’s automobile industry and 35 per cent of its component industry. In the areas around Chennai, automakers are increasing their penetration in the EV category. Auto companies are also being attracted to set up manufacturing units in the HKD belt because of its proximity to the IT and design hub of Bangalore. A senior official of Bengaluru-based company Ether Energy told BLiTZ, “An important factor in determining the location of our production plant has also been the proximity of the design and engineering teams to the design plant. Our engineers can easily reach the production plant from Hosur. In addition, we also had the advantage of easy access to most of our suppliers as they were well established. The company has two plants in this region. The first plant, which is slated to start operations in 2021, produces 4.30 lakh batteries per year and is functioning as a specialized site. The production capacity of the second plant, commissioned in November 2022, has increased and is now producing 4.20 lakh units every year. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)}; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′; n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0); s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’, ‘ fbq(‘init’, ‘550264998751686’); fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);