Mahindra Racing to evolve into advanced engineering solutions provider

Mahindra Racing, one of the founding (and only Indian team) members of the ABB Formula E Championship, the world's first all-electric street racing series, aims to become an advanced engineering arm for the Mahindra Group. At present, while Mahindra Racing is gearing up for the sixth season of the Formula E Championship, it also plans to focus on contributing towards advanced electric mobility solutions.

Mahindra Racing has plugged into the ABB Formula E Championship, the new pinnacle of motorsport, right from the start, one which currently sees over 10 OEMs and 12 teams participating in the street race. "Mahindra is one of the most lean and efficient teams in terms of performance as well as money invested and returns," says Dilbagh Gill, CEO and Team Principal, Mahindra Racing. He says that while there is no constraint in terms of expenditure for the company (Mahindra Racing), the investments need to be efficient and justified.

Speaking to Autocar Professional at a media interaction in Mumbai today, he enumerated on Mahindra Racing's strategy to support Mahindra & Mahindra's overall automotive programme. "At present, in addition to racing, the focus for the company (Mahindra Racing) is to help Automobili Pininfarina, where our technologies are directly relevant. MRV (Mahindra Research Valley) is for composites and materials (aluminium, titanium, carbon-fibre). Mahindra Racing is slowly trying to become an engineering arm, which will be very niche and very focussed towards electric mobility solutions."

Dilbagh Gill, CEO and Team Principal, Mahindra Racing with Jerome D'Ambrosio. 

Synergistic growth
Given that Mahindra Racing is part of the multi-company Mahindra Group, it is evident that it will benefit from group synergies. "We use Mahindra Electric's laboratories for cell testing and development among other things; they have certain equipment which we don't have. Mahindra Research Valley (MRV) helps us with simulation; we don't have the computing power that they have, and some of our simulations are quite demanding. For instance, some of our simulations start on a Friday evening and continue till Monday morning. Things like finding the efficient distance between two cars or cooling design. In fact, some of our softwares are also being tested there," reveals Gill.

Responding to a query on the company's preparedness to drive e-mobility in India, Gill said: "We are very far ahead in the journey. If you look at Mahindra's product portfolio, we do electric bicycles and scooters in the USA under the Genze brand and the Made-in-India e-Ludix under the Peugeot Motocycles brand is being exported. We have the Pininfarina Battista and Mahindra Electric's offerings too."

The overall aim for Mahindra Racing is to evolve into a bespoke advanced engineering solutions provider for Mahindra and allied companies, a goal that seems to be quite achievable.

Also read: ZF is Mahindra Racing's new powertrain partner for Formula E