E-converter: pepper focuses on India and plans the world's largest production facility outside of China

The approved investment project of pepper motion GmbH and its industry partners with the government of the state of Andhra Pradesh is set to establish new international benchmarks: The plan is to establish a fully integrated vertical manufacturing facility for the conversion of diesel buses and trucks as well as the construction of new vehicles, including a battery production capacity of up to 20 GWh. Both battery-electric drives and pepper's recently first small-scale series released fuel cell-based drive system are to be used. Additionally, it is planned to develop and offer corresponding charging infrastructure with other established technology partners such as chargebyte.

600 Million $ Investments

The investment project has a total volume of around 600 million US dollars with all planned expansion stages. The commissioning of the conversion and vehicle manufacturing facilities is not planned before early 2025. It is intended to produce more than 50,000 electric buses and trucks per year from 2027 and to market components for the electric drive of commercial vehicles internationally. The official kickoff for the cooperation will be the ceremonial event on the occasion of the investment approval for the establishment of the production facilities at the end of November 2023 in Andhra Pradesh.

Ambitious Decarbonization Goals

The Indian government is currently creating a favorable environment for the consistent development of the New Mobility and New Energy sectors and has set ambitious goals for decarbonization. Its strategy towards emission-free commercial vehicle traffic offers pepper a great opportunity to successfully establish itself as a leading technology supplier in the Indian market.

The existing port and industrial infrastructure and the innovation-driven, progressive economic policy of the state of Andhra Pradesh offer us excellent opportunities. (Andreas Hager, Managing Director and CEO of pepper motion GmbH)

High Interest

According to the German company, the interest of Indian public transport operators, private fleet operators, and the commercial vehicle industry, including e-commerce, logistics, and courier companies, in electrifying their fleets has been very high in talks with pepper as a technology leader in universal electric drive systems from the very beginning. Additionally, the willingness of the main players in the Indian commercial vehicle sector to transform towards an emission-free traffic sector is immense.

India is one of the largest, continuously growing markets for buses and commercial vehicles. This market is already more than twice the size of the entire European market today. The pool of know-how and skilled labor available within the country, including engineers, also creates ideal conditions for economic growth and the dynamic expansion of activities both domestically and internationally, according to pepper.