As the news of a seven-seater C-segment SUV being tested by Nissan in India gathers speed (besides the news that Renault will launch the new Duster as the Bigster in the next few months), the Renault Group and Nissan have announced new strategic projects. 
The most important of these is the restructuring of the Indian Renault Nissan Alliance entity with Renault Group buying out the 51 percent stake of Nissan, making Renault Nissan Automotive India Private Ltd (RNAIPL) its fully owned subsidiary. 
Despite this change, Nissan will maintain its presence in India with a strong focus on enhancing market coverage. RNAIPL will continue to support Nissan’s production of models, including the New Nissan Magnite in India. 
With Nissan choosing Renault Group to develop and produce a derivative of Twingo that it has designed, the restructuring of the Indian business that was until now a well-honed alliance effort with almost equal-equal investment by both the auto makers, the Renault Group and Nissan have entered into a new alliance agreement that would increase the flexibility of each of the two regarding their cross-shareholdings. This would be done by setting the lock-up undertaking at 10 percent instead of the current 15 percent. 
Nissan would be released from its commitment to invest in Ampere while continuing the agreed product projects.
 Luca de Meo, CEO of Renault Group, commented on the significant development: “As a long-time partner of Nissan within the Alliance and as its main shareholder, Renault Group has a strong interest in seeing Nissan turnaround its performance as quickly as possible. Pragmatism and business-oriented mindset were at the core of our discussions to identify the most effective ways of supporting their recovery plan while developing value-creating business opportunities for Renault Group. This Framework Agreement, beneficial for both parties, is the proof of the agile and efficient mindset of the new Alliance. It also confirms the attractiveness of our products with Twingo as well as our ambition to grow our business on international markets. India is a key automotive market and Renault Group will put in place an efficient industrial footprint and ecosystem.”
 “Nissan is committed to preserving the value and benefits of our strategic partnership within the Alliance while implementing turnaround measures to enhance efficiencies. Our goal is to create a more agile and effective business model that allows us to respond quickly to changing market conditions and conserve cash for future investments. We remain committed to the Indian market, delivering vehicles tailored to local consumer needs while ensuring top-notch sales and service for our existing and future customers. India will remain a hub for our research and development, digital and other knowledge services. Our plans for new SUVs in the India market remain intact, and we will continue our vehicle exports to other markets under the “One Car, One World” business strategy for India," said Ivan Espinosa, President and CEO of Nissan. 
 

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Chinese automotive major BYD (Build Your Dreams), one of the leading manufacturers of new energy vehicles (NEVs) across product categories, has outlined an ambitious target to become the No.1 automaker in the next five years.

The statement was made by Wang Chuanfu, CEO, BYD, who told investors in China, according to a Reuters report.

In 2025, BYD surpassed American automotive major Ford Motor Co in terms of sales, with 4.6 millions sold globally, thanks to robust domestic demand, as well as its aggressive expansion in global markets such as Europe and Asia.

The company now aims to surpass Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corporation, which continues to be the No.1 automaker (in terms of volumes), consistently selling over 10 million vehicles.

In 2025, Toyota Motor Corporation sold 11.32 million vehicles, Volkswagen Group sold 8.98 million units, Hyundai Motor Group sold 7.27 million units, GM (including SAIC-GM-Wuling) sold 6.18 million units, Stellantis sold 5.6 million units, while Ford had sales crossing 4 million units.

BYD Showcases DM-i Electric-First Hybrid Technology In India

For the unversed, the Shenzen-headquartered automaker had stopped producing Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles in 2022 and solely focused on electrification and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV).

Since then, the company has consistently expanded its customer base and tech upgrades.

In fact, BYD has recently started expanding its flash-charging station across Germany, which are capable of delivering up to 1,500 kW of charging speed. This allows its EVs (using Blade Battery 2.0 and Flash Charging 2.0 tech) to be charged from 10 percent to 70 percent in under 5-minutes and upto 97 percent in 9-minutes. The company is targeting to build 6,000 such flash-charging stations outside China by the end of 2026, with Europe expected to get half of it.

As per industry reports, BYD has already set up over 6,000 flash-charging stations across 300 cities in China till last month.

Interestingly, the company sold 383,453 EVs last month, taking its cumulative sales to 16.5 million EVs to date.

To further make smart inroads in the European market, BYD has also started conversations with automakers for acquiring their under utilised production facilities.

Also read: BYD Overtakes Tesla And BMW To Become UK’s Best-Selling EV Brand

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WACKER is presenting a portfolio of battery electric vehicle safety innovations at the Battery Show in Stuttgart, Germany, running from June 9 to June 11. Among the products featured at the company’s Hall 1, Booth K45, are a ceramifying silicone for thermal barriers, thermally conductive potting compounds for power electronics and materials under the ELASTOSIL, SEMICOSIL, SILRES and WACKER Silgel brands. The ceramifying silicone notably enhances heat and flame resistance, while the potting compounds enable effective temperature control with minimal sedimentation, allowing processing after long storage without complex pretreatment.

New potting compounds for thermal management take centre stage as another key exhibit. The spotlight falls on ELASTOSIL RT 7616 TC and ELASTOSIL RT 7624 TC, both filled addition-curing silicone elastomers that cure at room temperature, enabling energy-saving handling of large components. ELASTOSIL RT 7616 TC offers a thermal conductivity of 1.6 W/mK, while ELASTOSIL RT 7624 TC achieves 2.4 W/mK.

Thermally conductive potting compounds must balance on-spec thermal conductivity with low viscosity, but low viscosity can cause particulate fillers to sediment and cake after prolonged storage. Redispersing such fillers is time-consuming and may require special mixing equipment. WACKER has now eliminated these concerns with the optimised rheological properties of its new products, making sedimentation and agglomeration effects irrelevant for customers.

Even if fillers settle under unfavourable transport or storage conditions, standard mixing equipment can easily redisperse them. ELASTOSIL RT 7616 TC and ELASTOSIL RT 7624 TC feature low viscosities of 5,500 and 8,000 mPa•s, respectively, allowing quick, bubble-free filling of gaps as small as a few hundred micrometres. Their room-temperature curing eliminates the need for ovens regardless of component size.

These heat-resistant, low-emission formulations are primarily used in electromobility battery chargers, DC/DC converters and inverters for thermal management of discrete components like coils or inductors. Other silicones for electromobility include SILRES MK, a methyl silicone resin for mechanical and thermal barriers and ELASTOSIL CM 18x potting compounds for side potting of cells and top potting of pressure-relief vents, providing electrical and thermal insulation without impairing vent function.

ELASTOSIL R 531/60, a ceramifying silicone rubber for busbar insulation in high-voltage batteries, rounds out the offerings. This extrudable material improves electric vehicle safety by ceramifying in a fire, encasing busbars in a ceramic layer to maintain electrical insulation. WACKER is demonstrating all these solutions live at the Stuttgart exhibition.

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ELANTAS Beck India Ltd. has announced a strategic push to strengthen its speciality chemicals portfolio in response to the country’s rapidly expanding data centre infrastructure sector. The company, recognised for its expertise in electrical insulation and electronic protection, aims to support the evolving technical demands of this high-growth market.

The firm’s product range includes wire enamels, high and low voltage insulation materials, varnishes, resins, potting compounds and electronic protection solutions. These materials serve critical components across data centre ecosystems, such as transformers, generators, motors, power distribution units, cooling systems, server room electronics and battery energy storage systems.

India’s data centre capacity is growing swiftly due to rising artificial intelligence workloads, cloud computing, 5G rollouts and stricter data localisation norms. As facilities shift towards higher density and always-on operations, the need for reliable electrical infrastructure has intensified, placing greater emphasis on thermal management, cooling efficiency, electronics protection and uninterrupted energy storage.

Leveraging over 70 years of experience in speciality chemicals, ELANTAS Beck India Ltd. continues to enhance its capabilities through application-driven innovation, technology transfers and ongoing material development. The company remains focused on aligning with emerging industry standards for efficiency, reliability and performance across critical electrical and electronic applications.

Anurag Roy, Managing Director, ELANTAS Beck India Ltd., said, “As India’s data centre ecosystem continues to expand, the demand for reliable and high-performance electrical infrastructure is increasing significantly. This is creating strong opportunities for advanced insulation and protection solutions across critical applications that enable uninterrupted operations of these facilities. With our proven chemistry in electrical insulation and electronic protection, ELANTAS is well-positioned to support this evolution through application-focused chemistries designed for reliability, efficiency and long-term operational performance.”

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Greaves Finance, the EV-focused non-banking financial company (NBFC) subsidiary of Greaves Cotton, has announced the successful deployment of its previously sanctioned institutional debt of INR 2.23 billion.

The capital injection, executed during the April-March 2026 fiscal cycle, has accelerated the retail lending footprint of its multi-brand electric vehicle financing platform, ev.fin, scaling its physical presence to 74 cities across India. The entity plans to surpass 80 operational cities by July 2026.

The INR 2.23 billion institutional capital was raised through a calculated asset-liability mix consisting of Listed Non-Convertible Debentures (NCDs) and structured term loans. The fundraise was anchored by a consortium of tier-one institutional lenders and asset management firms, including AK Capital, Northern Arc Investment Managers, AU Small Finance Bank, Ambit Finvest, MAS Financial Services and Maanveeya.

Backed by this capital deployment and rising consumer credit demand, the company's financial metrics as of March 2026 stand at INR 5.22 billion of Managed Assets Under Management (AUM), cumulative loan disbursements exceeding INR 7.74 billion, which includes over 55,000 active retail and fleet accounts.

Traditional automotive financing heavily weights a borrower's static income profile. In contrast, ev.fin utilises a differentiated, OEM-agnostic asset underwriting model that structures loan terms based on the real-time thermal health, degradation curves, and residual resale value of the EV battery pack.

The platform is directly embedded into the point-of-sale (POS) dealerships of major electric two-wheeler (E2W) and three-wheeler (E3W) original equipment manufacturers, including Ather Energy, Ampere, River, Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, TVS Motor Company, Suzuki and Ultraviolette.

The platform's proprietary underwriting framework allows it to issue specialised, risk-adjusted credit instruments that track the entire functional lifecycle of an electric vehicle:

P B Sunil Kumar, Executive Director & CEO, Greaves Finance, said, “The deployment of substantial funds from our existing INR 2.23 billion, marks an important milestone for ev.fin and reflects strong institutional and investor trust. Our institutional partnerships and investor endorsement have provided a robust foundation, which demonstrates support for our differentiated business model and is a ringing endorsement of the way we have decided to scale the business."

"As India’s electric mobility market accelerates, innovative and accessible financing solutions will remain central to unlocking the next phase of growth. Recognising this potential, we are actively working toward expanding our lender ecosystem to support our next growth cycle while maintaining robust underwriting and portfolio quality,” he concluded.

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