GM India and Reva Electric Car Co. Partnering to Expand Eastern Presence
December 8, 2009 Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis Despite the global recession, General Motors India and Reva Electric Car Co. are set to close the year on a high gear.
At last week’s Los Angles Auto Show, Robert A. Lutz, GM’s vice chairman of global product development, said, “Today, we have a much healthier balance sheet, with significantly less debt. We’re positioned to be profitable in anything close to a normal automotive sales market. And, we’ll begin to repay our government loans sooner than expected, starting this month.”
On the international front, Mr. Lutz remarked about GM’s newest ‘green’ India partnership, saying, “In September, we signed an agreement with Reva Electric Car Company to cooperate in the development of small car platform based electric vehicles for India.
“Our goal is to jointly develop, with Reva, electric vehicle technology, and advanced vehicle control systems. We’re also working closely with the government of India to develop an electric vehicle infrastructure.”
At the initial announcement of the partnership in September, Chetan Maini, deputy chairman and chief technology officer at Reva Electric, said, “Each of the partners will use its strengths, with the aim of making India a global hub for the development and manufacture of electric vehicles and related technologies.”
Beyond the new partnership with GM, the India automaker also just unveiled its newest lithium ion powered electric car, the REVA NXR, which is scheduled to go into production early in 2010.
Some stats provided by Reva on the NXR are that it’s:
- A three-door, four-seat hatchback family car that suitable for urban driving.
- Top speed is 104 kilometers per hour (65 miles per hour) with a range of 160 kilometers (100 miles) per charge.
- If using a 90 minute fast charge (normal charge is eight hours), it offers an effective range of 320 kilometers a day. A fast charge for 15 minutes will provide a 40 kilometer (25 mile) range.
This model also has alerts and commands such as distance-to-empty and time-to-full charge, and REVive remote emergency charge. The REVive feature will assess the car’s battery remotely and activate a reserve amount of energy while protecting the battery life.
Reva is also making strives in the production process that it’s using to build the cars. The company says that the car has been designed to use approximately 80% fewer parts than a conventional or hybrid car.
The car will be put together in Reva’s new “low-carbon” assembly plant in Bangalore, India, which will use solar energy as part of the power output of the plant. Other features of the plant will be natural ventilation and rainwater harvesting.
Reva’s current distribution scope is: Norway, United Kingdom, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Hungry, Portugal, Cyprus, and Greece.
Additional U.S-India Partnership Article
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