EV deployment shifted from break-even timing to financing/charging-infra bottleneck.

Could you help us with the underlying volume growth of the business, and with the volume growth in the engineering business?

So, it is almost in line, because there are no major price movements in the Q4. So, you can consider whatever is the sales growth shown in the Q4, it is in line with the volume growth.

Given the challenging macro environment, how are you seeing demand and volume growth in the early part of 1Q FY2027? Many OEMs are hinting at challenges on growth as well as on the cost side and pressure on margins.

So, Joseph, as of now, we see volu me growth are still on the stronger side. So, we see the growth is still bullish. But like you said that there is a challenge on the commodity price increases along with the macro environment, fuel prices is a challenge in front of us. But like you are aware of, commodity price increase, we get it from our customers because we have contracts in place, which comes with sometimes a one or two quarter lag that will be recovery. The immediate challenge is how to get the inflation on the fuel and this thing, which we have taken up with our customers. So we are hopeful through either driving some cost reduction inside, and taking up with customer which may have a little bit lag , we will be able to cover that.

On the EV side, given crude price volatility providing a better pitch for TCO on the EV side, how are we seeing the demand, especially on the HCV? Is financing still an issue? What is stopping us from scaling up in the HCV side?

Yes, so Rushabh, thanks. You are absolutely right. We are definitely seeing an upswing in the demand for the electric vehicles, especially in our heavy truck segment and also i n the small commercial vehicle segment. In fact, we are sitting on a very good order book for the big trucks. Coming to the challenges, the challenge is primarily on account of deployment and in deployment there are two parts to it. One is financing, as you rightly said, because the average deployment is for about 50 to 100 trucks, which translates into about Rs.100 Crores plus kind of money , which is required to be put by the service provider and second is the challenges to set up the charging infrastructu re for a given route. So these two are the challenges which we are working towards and we are hopeful we will untangle that because order book is good and we are hopeful to deploy these trucks in Q1 and Q2.

On the long haul side, we are trying to do battery swap. What is the plan of action there and can we see significant scale up in the coming one or two years?

So Rushabh, the situation has slightly changed with the introduction of higher capacity batteries and the fast charging, which is now available as a technology, so one of the positives of the swap is that it takes less than 7 to 10 minutes to do a swap. The not so positive for swap is the huge setup cost, which a swapping infrastructure requires. So the judgment is still not out. When you look at China as a market, so there also, at some point of time, it was a swapping technology, which was more prevalent. But at this point of time, the trend seems to be tilting towards higher battery capacities and a fast charging as a solution. So as far as we are concerned, we are not giving up on swap as a technology. There would be applications like ports, etc., where swapping only will work. So we are ready with our swap t echnology. In fact, we are working on a couple of orders in our hand for the same. But going forward, it looks like that higher battery capacity and fast charging could be the way forward for long haul.

There is news flow that the world's largest battery maker has commercialized sodium ion technology. Does this change anything for us — if sodium ion really does become mainstream, does it help reduce TCO?

Not immediately because the technology getting translated into a cell and then coming on to the validation and the full-fledged implementation on the vehicle is a slightly long drawn process, so maybe in times to come, yes, but immediately no.

On the three wheeler side, we had some issues that we resolved. Where are we on the scale up on the three wheeler auto side?

Yes, so three wheeler in Q3 of this year, in Q2 of last financial year, we had introduced an upgraded version of the Super Auto, which had started gaining good market traction. For us, one of the challenges in our scale up was on the supply side was the body- in-white supplier, which we took a bold call in Q4, despite it being in Q4, that we will solve this issue once and for all, which I am glad that we have done. So we took a short term hit, our Q4 volume took a beating because we could only produce 50% of what we could have produced otherwise, which took a toll on our both billing as well as retails at the dealer end. But now that issue is resolved and I am very confident that as we end this particular quarter, Q1, we will be back to our normal production capacity on the supply side. Parallelly, on the demand side, the good news is that this new improved version has found a good market acceptance and we are very confident that you will be able to see or you will be seeing a good scale up of volumes as we move forward on three wheeler business.

On the medical devices front, we have been expecting some certification and export for a year but not seeing significant scale up. What is the reason and what is the outlook?

So, exports, like you rightly said, the regulatory things are already over, but we had a little bit headwind on Middle East business, which was also a good market, which we feel is a temporary, but we are able to scale up in the Europe, particularly and Southea st Asian countries, but little got muted because of this war scenario.

What is the outlook for the medical devices business for the next year? Is the worst behind us or is it subject to macro things? Is there anything to identify new products or acquisition to buy growth?

So we have given guidance, maybe even the last investor call, particularly which we are in wound care, which is basicall y suture business. We are confident to grow the business between the range of 15% to 20% and coming to further acquisition, we just now completed a small transaction, which was an asset purchase for the IV cannula business and we are going to finish even the plant approvals for whatever assets we have purchased which will be done during the quarter and that will also start adding to the growth of TI Medical. So overall we are still bullish about this business and we are hopeful will give 20% year-on-year growth in TI Medical going forward.

Can you give an update on the CDMO business manufacturing plant and when to expect revenue commencement? Also, how much capex in standalone business FY2027 and how much investments into new ventures?

So like we shared, particularly CDMO business, our plant is under final commissioning. And we are going to do the commercial production from our Naidupet facility starting next quarter. That is part number one. Part number two, capex in our core business will be around Rs.300 Crores to Rs.350 Crores range. And coming to the subsidiaries, based on the requirement like we shared in the last investor meeting, some money will be required for, depending on how operations are scaling up for the TICMPL, which is o ur EV business. And TI Medical also, we are going to invest money going forward. All put together, we have a rough cut estimate of around Rs.300 Crores going into the subsidiaries also.

Could you share the volumes for the quarter in the electric vehicle businesses for each of the products?

Q4, the volumes were the big trucks 87. Big trucks were the M&HCV business was 87 numbers. The small commercial vehicle business was 241 . The three wheeler business was 1,176 and tractor there was, no billing.

You mentioned this challenge on body-in-white procurement. If you can elaborate — is it resolved and have you started manufacturing in-house or has supply chain stabilized?

Yes, so there was a supplier who was with us from the beginning of the business and we were struggling with this particular supplier and is the reason we tried wo rking out various solutions with him over a period of couple of years. But finally, we could very clearly identify that as we want to scale up our volumes to immediately to 1 ,000 and then to 2 ,000 plus consistently, this definitely would be one of the bottlenecks and then we have taken over that particular facility of the supplier. It is very close to our existing unit where we make our three wheeler and now we are running the facility and is the reason and whatever we have seen in the month of April and up till now in the month of May, we have been able to ramp up to the levels that we had targeted for. There are still some more teething issues to be resolved. So that is the reason we are very confident by end of this quarter, we will be able to reso lve by and large this specific issue of body invite.

On the MFP segment, the engineering business has seen strong volume growth last two quarters but MFP remains sluggish. Any reasons and what could be the outlook for next year?

So Salil, your observation is right. MFPD is going a bit slow. The reasons for that are, one is the railways, where maybe we have not got the profitability in the tender business and new product development with the private players is taking a bit of time , from our side it is over that is first and second one of the major customers in MFPD is Hyundai which also had a muted growth you might have observed Hyundai as a OEM maybe has not done so well in the last financial year but now they started doing even the production in the Wes tern part of the country where also we have put up a facility for them so hopefully those issues will be behind us and we will have a better year for the MFPD in coming time.

Is the Western India capacity for MFP fully operational and stabilized or is there still phased expansion planned?

So Hyundai has just started maybe last quarter only their Western plant and we are already servicing requirements from ou r facility in Pune. Obviously, it will go through a ramp up phase, but all those issues we feel in Q1 ramp up issues and some teething issues, whenever you start a plant, will be getting settled in current quarter.

How about the capacity for steel tubes — is that fully stable?

So whatever facility expansion we are doing, maybe, let us say, I think it was worked everything in our favor. CRSS plant in Nasik is ramping up. And hopefully, by end of this financial year or middle of next financial year, it will be 100% utilized. We are in the thought process what we should do for further expanding it. But we will take a call on that down the line six months. Our Tube facilities also in the Western region have touched almost about 30% capacity utilization. Ho pefully, the same commentary, maybe by middle of next financial year, we are hopeful it will get 100% utilized.

In earlier con calls you mentioned planning a significant cost reduction across all EV platforms. Where are we in that journey in terms of cost reduction and localization?

So yes, Rushabh. So cost reduction across all our four platforms is a very important initiative and it is a continuous and ongoing process, although some of the recent geopolitical situations are the headwinds that we are facing. But I can assure you this is one of the topmost priority across all the four businesses. And various businesses have various levers to play in our journey to BOM cost reduction. When it comes to localization, I am happy to report that one of the parameter of localization is a PM E-drive scheme, which was introduced by Government of India, which incentivizes on the purchase of electric truck only after a truck is certified to be containing some percentage of localizatio n and component. Our Montra Electric Rhino was the first electric truck in the country to be certified under the PM E-drive scheme, which happened in Q4, and we could deliver vehicles under this particular scheme. So that answers, but directionally, we are fully committed to increase the localization content across all our platforms.

On competitive intensity in HCV, despite the market being small, a lot of players have entered. How do you intend to stand out in HCV and maintain market leadership?

Yes, you are absolutely right. Despite the market being very small, I will say across al l the segments. So in truck segment, for example, there are already 11 players. And despite 11 players being there, we ended the year being a market leader with about 28% market share. Likewise, in small commercial vehicles also, there are already seven players. Despite that, in Q4, we had a market share of 27%. So intensity will be there. What we are or what is our USP is the end customer value proposition when he purchases the electric truck, which we feel the way we go about doing a solution selling in the market is what sets us apart from the rest of the competition. Not to talk about, I am not undermining the product reliability, et c., which is definitely there. But if I was to pin out, I will single that out as our approach as our USP vis-a-vis the competition.