April 7, 2022: Lead-acid battery maker Exide Industries revealed on April 4 it may be about to invest in the region of Rs6,000 crore — Rs60,000,000,000 ($793 million) — in building a multi-gigawatt battery cell manufacturing in India’s Karnataka state.

Exide said on March 10 it had agreed a long-term technical collaboration partnership with China’s SVOLT Energy Technology for lithium ion cell manufacturing on a greenfield site — but the location and financial details were not disclosed.

However, in its April 4 regulatory filing to the National Stock Exchange of India, Exide said it expected to invest around Rs6,000 crore “over a period of time” in the project to supply India’s burgeoning energy storage and automotive sectors, although the investment had yet to be formally signed off by the company.

Exide said it had yet to receive formal notification from Karnataka state confirming details of the site designated to develop the battery cells plant.

But Exide said India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs issued a certificate of incorporation on March 24 for the company’s wholly-owned Exide Energy Solutions subsidiary — which will coordinate development of the Karnataka plant and run future operations at the site.