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Informist, Wednesday, May 6, 2026

--Exide: Samples of own lithium ion cells to be given to customers Jun-Jul

--CONTEXT: Comments from Exide mgmt at post Jan-Mar earnings analsyt call

By Avishek Rakshit and Ashutosh Pati

KOLKATA/MUMBAI – Exide Industries Ltd., which is setting up the country's first lithium ion battery plant in Bengaluru is set to roll out sample batteries from the plant and supply them to vehicle original equipment manufacturers in Jun-Jul, a senior company official said.

Usually, successful rollout and acceptance of samples lead to a full-scale production soon. 

"We have completed our process validation. The sample supplies will start possibly this month, end of this month, or next month, and we will be able to give the cell to our customers in this month," Avik Roy, managing director and chief executive officer at Exide, told sector analysts Wednesday. 

Immediately after his comments, Pravin Saraf, managing director and chief executive officer at Exide Energy Solutions Ltd., said that customer validation will take some time. 

"For the prismatic cell, right now, we are running the trials for making the customer samples. We are targeting by June and July, we want to give the samples for custom validation," Saraf said. 

Exide's lithium ion battery business, the key growth vertical for the company, is housed under its wholly-owned subsidiary, Exide Energy Solutions. Exide is setting up a 12 gigawatt hour capacity factory in Bengaluru to manufacture lithium-ion cells. In the first phase, 6 GWh capacity will be commissioned and the rest 6 GWh will come up in the second phase at a later date. 

The company is funding the project by divesting its insurance business to HDFC Life Insurance Co. Ltd. from which it had realised around INR 67 billion in 2022. The capacity in the first phase is likely to be equally shared between Nickel Manganese Cobalt and Lithium Iron Phosphate chemistry-based cells. 

After investing around INR 50 billion in the plant, Exide is looking at further investing INR 14 billion in the current financial year on the lithium ion battery plant. 

"We have already got a board approval of investing 1400 crore (INR 14 billion) in the fiscal year 27 (2026-27 (Apr-Mar)), which is a mix of both capex (capital expenditure) as well as the opex (operational expenditure) - working capital requirements, which we have to fund," Roy said. 

This investment excludes the capacity and additional investment Exide will be making in collaboration with Hyundai Motor India Ltd. to develop and build lithium-ion batteries for their vehicles. 

"With Hyundai, we have a separate contract where there is a co-investment. So, we are delinking it with our own internal investment. So that will be an incremental capacity over 6 GWh when we commission that," Roy said.

The top official said prices of lithium-ion batteries has again gone up by double digit in the last couple of months due to various supply demand constraints.

"Last one year, lithium was dropping because there was high overcapacity in China. Today, the situation is reversed because of this West Asia crisis. Because of crude shortages, the production of electric vehicle and electric vehicle batteries in China has shot up," Roy said.

At 1343 IST, shares of Exide traded around 4% lower at INR 347.25 on the National Stock Exchange. End

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

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