India imports 10 times the amount of EV components it exports to China

India and China started their auto industry journey together in the 1990s. However, along the way China took two steps forward and are now, not only the largest and fastest growing electric vehicle manufacturer in the world but also claim the title for the largest automobile market in the world, period! And by a huge margin, too. In 2018, China produced a total of 23.71 million cars for domestic and international markets. In comparison, only Japan gets close but with just over 8 million cars produced under their belt. India, on the other, is fourth largest automobile manufacturer and produces just over 4 million cars. Of the total number, 60 per cent of the global electric vehicle car production in the world saw Chinese hands working to complete them. While India holds dominance with a younger demographic, cheaper manpower and digital supremacy, China has vast reserves of raw material on their side. This, in turn, has resulted in a quantum shift between EV components imported from China, as compared to our EV component exports to China.

While the ‘Make-in-India’ comes in full swing, there’s no denying the discrepancy in the numbers of EV component exports to EV component imports with China, with a alarming ratio of 1:10. In 2019 along, Chinese EV components imported into India touched USD 4.3 billion, and experts say that this number is only set to rise. Breaking the statistics down, final drive transmission and steering systems amount to the largest volume for these imports, followed closely by electricals, interior and engine parts.

As the Indian government pushes further for more electric vehicles, local OEMs and tier-I supplier are forced to import more, hindered by a lack of appropriate hardware manufacturing bases. Even with government sanctions, localisation targets and the cost of high import tax in place, manufacturers just can’t shake the fact that they are in a better position ‘importing-into-India’ than ‘Making-in-India’.