Mahindra & Mahindra said “dealing with volatility” is now central to its EV business strategy as the company navigates geopolitical uncertainty, semiconductor-linked disruptions and continued dependence on imported EV components while scaling manufacturing in India.
Speaking at the Citi India Investor Conference, 2026, Abanti Sankaranarayanan, chief group public affairs officer and member of the group executive board at Mahindra Group, said disruption is no longer treated as episodic crisis management but as a permanent operating condition for modern manufacturing businesses.
“Dealing with volatility has to be part of the business playbook. It is no longer crisis management, it is part of everyday managinyour business,” Sankaranarayanan said, describing Mahindra’s internal “accelerate in uncertainty” strategy.
The comments came as Mahindra’s EV business reported a 2 per cent PBIT margin in FY26, compared with roughly 11 per cent margins for the company’s broader automotive operations, highlighting both improving EV economics and the profitability gap that still exists between electric and internal combustion engine vehicle manufacturing in India.
BUILDING A RESILIENT SUPPLY CHAIN
Mahindra said it has built a supply-chain monitoring framework around its automotive operations, which source nearly ₹1 lakh crore worth of components annually across roughly 1 lakh parts.
The company has identified 89 high-risk part families and nine vulnerable commodity groups that are now under continuous monitoring through inventory buffers, supplier diversification and localisation planning.
The push has become increasingly important as India’s EV ecosystem remains dependent on imported battery materials, semiconductor-linked electronics and supply chains concentrated largely in China and East Asia. Mahindra said suppliers are also being encouraged to localise manufacturing in India to reduce import dependence and geopolitical exposure.
PLI, LOCALISATION AND SCALE
Mahindra said incentives under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme helped underwrite part of the investment risk associated with EV manufacturing.
“PLI has played a very significant role,” Sankaranarayanan said, adding that the scheme helped de-risk investments in technologies where consumer adoption patterns are still evolving.
Mahindra has already committed around ₹14,000 crore toward its EV business and plans to invest another ₹14,000–15,000 crore over time as it expands its electric SUV portfolio and localisation ecosystem.
Sankaranarayanan also linked India’s free trade agreement strategy to Mahindra’s long-term EV competitiveness, arguing that wider export access would improve manufacturing scale and cost economics over time.
“FTAs make us better because competition forces us to become more cost competitive,” she said.
She also pointed to India’s recent critical mineral partnerships with Gulf nations and the United States as an important step toward reducing long-term dependence on China in battery and renewable-energy supply chains.
THE BIGGER SHIFT
Mahindra’s approach reflects a broader shift underway across Indian manufacturing, where volatility is increasingly being treated as a structural feature of global business rather than a temporary disruption.
For automakers investing heavily in electric vehicles, the challenge is no longer simply building products. It is building resilient sourcing, localisation and manufacturing systems capable of operating through continuous geopolitical, commodity and supply-chain shocks.
As India’s EV ecosystem scales, executives say companies that learn to “accelerate in uncertainty” may ultimately gain the biggest competitive advantage.