Rajesh Jejurikar: Mahindra Will Chase EV Volume, Not Mass-Market Scale

Rajesh Jejurikar on Mahindra's Post-2020 Reset

Six years after Rajesh Jejurikar took charge of Mahindra & Mahindra’s Auto and Farm sectors in April 2020, the company is describing its transformation as a move from an icon-led SUV maker to a technology-driven mobility business. In a businessline interview, Jejurikar says the pivot was not a plan to chase volume share, but a decision to compete only where Mahindra believed it had a “right to win”.

The result, he says, is a portfolio built around differentiated products at higher average price points. The company now says demand has been robust enough that it has been “more constrained by supply than demand” over the past five or six months. Its older nameplates remain a core part of that: Thar, Scorpio and Bolero are each selling close to 10,000 units a month.

Jejurikar also frames GST as a structural support, not just a stimulus. He argues it lowered acquisition costs by around 8-10 per cent in commercial vehicles and improved affordability in passenger vehicles, enabling upgrades rather than simply protecting volumes.

The next phase, he says, will be shaped by common platforms such as NU_IQ and an electric push that prioritises absolute EV volumes over a penetration percentage, while keeping Mahindra out of the “mass-mass” segment.

The Economics Behind Mahindra's SUV Icons and EV Volume Push

Why Mahindra chose revenue share over volume share

Jejurikar’s explanation is a deliberate rejection of “chasing volume market share blindly”. The company’s focus is on products customers have affinity for — differentiated through technology, style and design at their price point. The commercial logic is that higher average selling prices allow Mahindra to grow revenue market share even when unit share is not the primary target. It is a strategy that depends on protecting price integrity and brand strength rather than buying volume through discounts.

The GST effect was not the same for passenger and commercial vehicles

Jejurikar argues GST did more than stimulate consumption: it improved affordability and enabled customers to upgrade to better brands or variants. In commercial vehicles, he says commodity and regulatory costs had raised prices by nearly 20 per cent, and GST offset a large part of that, reducing acquisition costs by around 8-10 per cent. That helped revive freight-intensive sectors such as cement through better vehicle utilisation. In passenger vehicles, the effect was strongest in the sub-₹10 lakh segment, while higher-priced buyers were nudged upward. His caveat is that the real risk would be a simultaneous rise in prices and interest rates — something he says has not happened.

Why Scorpio-N did not cannibalise Scorpio Classic

The interview highlights a caution for legacy brands: change iconic products too much and customers disconnect. Jejurikar says Scorpio-N was an evolution that retained the elements buyers associate with the Scorpio, and the result was that the franchise grew rather than split. That is why the older nameplates remain valuable — Scorpio is about 24 years old and Bolero about 26 years old, yet both are still part of the near-10,000-unit monthly performance. The implication is that Mahindra treats each redesign as a test of brand continuity, not a free rein to modernise.

Common platforms are a supplier-scale play

Mahindra says it has scaled up product-development resources while learning from electric-vehicle programmes to standardise platforms. Instead of separate supplier discussions for Thar, Scorpio or XUV volumes, the company can now aggregate volumes across multiple products. That commonality gives it scale across programmes and should reduce unit costs — a meaningful shift for an automaker expanding its SUV, commercial and electric line-up simultaneously.

EV strategy: volume progress over a mix ratio

Jejurikar argues the EV yardstick should be absolute volume, not a fixed penetration percentage. He says the company sees no reason it will not cross 1.2 lakh EVs in absolute volume terms, while the ratio will depend on how strongly the internal-combustion business grows. He also rules out moving into the “mass-mass” segment to get EV scale: the philosophy remains entering only where Mahindra can create something differentiated. On hybrids, he positions them as an economic choice for high-usage customers, similar to the earlier diesel-versus-petrol calculation, but says EV remains the fundamental long-term strategy as charging infrastructure builds out.

What Mahindra's Strategy Signals for Investors, Suppliers and Car Buyers

• For investors: The clearest Mahindra-specific tracker from this interview is the absolute EV volume ambition of 1.2 lakh units, not the EV penetration ratio. Jejurikar explicitly says the ratio will depend on ICE growth and that Mahindra will not slow ICE to hit a mix target.
• For suppliers: Mahindra’s common-platform strategy means component negotiations can now cover aggregated volumes across Thar, Scorpio, XUV and BEV programmes, so pricing discussions should be based on multi-programme scale rather than single-model volumes.
• For competitors: Mahindra is signalling it will not fight for the “mass-mass” EV segment. That leaves the lower-priced, high-volume electric segment open to rivals while Mahindra concentrates on differentiated, higher-price-point products.
• For car buyers: High-usage buyers weighing hybrid against EV should recognise Jejurikar’s framing: hybrids can make economic sense only for high-mileage customers, while EVs offer operating costs at a fraction of ICE once charging access is sufficient.