India’s first electric car battery plant takes shape

India wants to move from being a producer of raw materials for electric batteries to making some of their key parts.

The son-in-law of India’s biggest steel tycoon is betting big on converting coal tar into graphite anodes for electric-car batteries in a bid to test China’s monopoly in the sector. Vikram Handa set up Epsilon Advanced Materials Pvt — India’s first manufacturer of lithium-ion battery parts — in the southern state of Karnataka in August, sourcing the raw material from the largest steel mill in the country that’s owned by his father-in-law, Sajjan Jindal. Handa plans to invest 60 billion rupees ($807 million) to produce 100,000 tons of synthetic graphite anode by 2030, or about 10% of estimated global demand. Anode materials are the negative electrode in lithium-ion batteries and account for a quarter of a cell’s components. China has been producing more than 80% of the world’s supply of these anodes, importing raw materials from countries including India. By producing the anodes in India, Handa aims to transition the South Asian nation from a battery minerals centre to a battery materials hub.