autoX Awards 2024: Mahindra Interview

You’ve had a long, successful career spanning different industries and different geographies. And you’ve now spent a couple of years in the automotive industry as well. What’s the one thing that’s surprised you in that time?

I think the biggest surprise that I’ve had is the Indian consumer. If you look at it, the two big purchases that they make during their lifetimes – which are as much emotional purchases as they are logical purchases – are a house and a car. So, the amount of emotion that they bring to the decision making, the amount of emotion they have when they own that car, and when they take it home, is something that I had not been aware of before I came into the industry. That has really taken me by surprise in a positive way. There are so many positive stories of folks coming to dealerships to take a vehicle home. When we launched the 3XO, a family of 17 members showed up to take delivery of one single car. It was the first car in their entire neighbourhood! So, that’s very gratifying to see. 

Speaking of emotion, we’re here for the Thar Roxx, and the Thar is all about emotion. We’re heading towards an EV future, and Mahindra Has done a lot of work in developing a new range of EVs, but do you think that that same level of emotion can be achieved for this new line of EVs?

Before I get to the EVs, let me talk a little bit about Thar itself. I’ve lost count of the number of e-mails I have gotten in all CAPS that say ‘Thar is an emotion’ from so many different customers. The Thar is a brand that all Indians own, and they have just let us steward the brand. It’s a brand which is truly pan India, and the reason for that is that this is a product that is made with a lot of passion, a lot of heart, and it shows in the product.

And you’re going to see exactly the same amount of emotion and passion that we’ve brought to our BEVs as well. Our aim was to develop vehicles that would have the best performance bar none, not just in India, but across the globe. Also, our goal was to build a fantastic performance machine that just happens to be an EV. That’s why we know that these vehicles will resonate. Everyone who’s seen these vehicles has walked away with a big grin on their face, so that tells us we’re on the right track. 

Going back to the overall industry for a second, how do you think that advancements like Gen AI, for instance, will affect the automotive industry going forward?

I think AI in general is permeating through pretty much every single step of the development process, and even the customer engagement process. We see that a lot of the engine testing we do today has AI injected in it as well. Similarly, a lot of our customer touchpoints have a lot of AI integrated into them as well. Gen AI, I think, is going to bring a new dimension to the whole thing. I will just give you just one example on the customer service side. We now are using Gen AI to see how we can train our mechanics, because some of them may not be able to have a conversation in English or read English very well. So, they ask a question in the local language and then Gen AI picks up the right material from the manual and gives them the answer in the local language. So, though it’s early days, we’re really excited about where we’re heading with that.

Coming back to the BEVs for a second – a lot of time, effort and money has gone into this development process. But is this more risky than investing in ICE because the EV future is a little more uncertain?

We are very clear that EV is the final-end state. There is no question that this is where this industry is headed. The question is when. I can sit and try to find out how to time that or I can say that I will put the best-in-class product out there and it will convince the customer. When somebody walks in, I’m not sitting there with a spreadsheet saying how many kilometres do you normally drive every day and how does the total cost of ownership work. There’s a segment for that, but we are making a product which is an object of desire. We want a vehicle where somebody walks in and says, I want this vehicle. Oh, by the way, it’s an EV. In some ways, that is what happened with the three-door Thar as well. It’s not the product that worked for everyone, but it worked for a certain customer base and we’ll see a similar story with the BEVs as well.

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We are very clear that EV is the final-end state. There is no question that this is where this industry is headed. The question is when