Exide Industries to Enter U.S. Auto Market

Exide Industries of New Delhi, India, is designing batteries suitable for the American automobile market.

“U.S. automobile market is so huge that we are looking at only 1 to 2% of their market. They have a different design and we have the equipments to make batteries for them,” says Exide Chairman S. B. Ganguly.

Ganguly, however, expressed concern over the import duty on lead, a main input for battery manufacturing. Import duty has been kept at 20% for both finished batteries and lead. This would encourage imports due to duty advantage in other countries, especially China and other East Asian countries.

Lead comprises 70% of the total material cost and an immediate correction in this anomaly would hit the domestic manufacturers badly.

Speaking for the Indian Battery Manufacturers Association (IBMA), Ganguly asked the government for an immediate reduction in duty on lead to 5%.