Tata Motors Ltd is prioritizing flexible production over a dedicated electric vehicle (EV) bus line, as it looks to stay agile in a tender-driven market where demand can quickly shift between diesel, compressed natural gas (CNG)and electric buses.
The stance underscores a cost-conscious approach to an uncertain order pipeline, with the company betting that multi-powertrain lines will help it respond faster to government tenders, rather than lock capital into specialized EV capacity amid stiff competition.
On the sidelines of an event at the company's Lucknow plant, Tata Motors managing director and chief executive Girish Wagh told reporters that a dedicated EV production line is not needed even as the company increases its participation in tenders for electric buses, where it lost leadership in FY26.
“All our manufacturing facilities are flexible. You can either produce a diesel or a CNG or an electric. Because that is the need of the hour,” Wagh said. “You will have one month when suddenly you have to supply a lot of CNG buses; you will have a month, where you have to produce more electric buses… If you start investing in dedicated lines, in my view, it is not financially prudent.”
The commentary from the commercial vehicle market leader comes as new age rivals like PMI Electro Mobility and Eka Mobility rush to build dedicated electric bus plants to target a series of government tenders across central and state governments.
The trajectory of Tata Motors Commercial Vehicle's EV play in the bus sector and Tata Motors Passenger Vehicle has diverged, with the former seeing electric bus sales considerably slow down in FY26, while the passenger vehicle business consolidated its leadership in the EV sector. Both businesses completed their demerger in November after the listing of the commercial vehicle business.
In FY26, electric bus sales of Tata Motors fell 83% to 179 units from 1,058 units a year ago, government's Vahan dashboard showed. Tata Motors PV, meanwhile, saw a 36% growth to over 78,000 EV sales in FY26.
Government tenders drive EV bus push
The company's comments on its EV bus plans come at a time when the government is accelerating the rollout of EV bus tenders after having closed the largest electric bus tender of 10,900 buses in December. Tata had bid in the tender but was not successful.
On Wednesday, the government concluded the bidding for 6,230 electric bus tenders. Mint reported on 1 April that a 3,000 e-bus tender is also going to be rolled out within the next two months.
Wagh noted that beyond government's big tenders, the company is also looking to participate in those floated by various state authorities. “We do participate in state tenders. And in fact, I mean, just recently we actually won a tender for almost 300 buses in Chennai,” he said.
“In the longer term especially, we are talking of 12 years, (there are) quite a few uncertainties that we are now aware of after running these many buses,” Wagh added.
Tatas' new age rivals are betting big on the EV bus sector. PMI Electro Mobility, founded in 2017 by Satish Jain and Anurag Aggarwal, has a 3,000-unit annual capacity plant in Dharuhera, Haryana, and is building a second plant in Neemrana with a capacity of 15,000 buses. Eka Mobility expanded to a 6,000-bus annual capacity in FY26.
