Ampere to start second unit

Ampere Vehicles, a Coimbatore-based manufacturers of electric vehicles, plans to start another manufacturing plant.

Its General Manager (Operations) B. Ramachandran told The Hindu recently that the company had started identifying land and was likely to open it in a year.

The existing unit at Sulur had the capacity to produce 100 vehicles a day. The two-year old company had sold about 2,000 vehicles so far.

Ampere manufactured 22 models now, including two-wheelers, three-wheelers and customised electric vehicles. The focus would continue to be on its base product – two wheelers.

The company had won a bid to supply about 540 special vehicles, customised for the differently-abled, to the Tamil Nadu Government. It was planning to open about 120 dealership outlets this year across the four Southern States.

On the three-wheeler segment, Mr. Ramachandran said the company expected a substantial increase in market for load carriers that could be used to transport cylinders, water bottles and within institutions. Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ampere Hemalatha Annamalai has said in a release that the company had a technical collaboration with a Japanese company and the National University of Singapore. Currently, the vehicles were financed through Shriram Finance. The State Bank of India would extend retail finance to Ampere's customers soon.