Exide Industries, a Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) company and the largest automotive battery manufacturer, said on Wednesday that it was in the process of designing batteries suitable for the American automobile market.
"US automobile market is so huge that we are looking at only one to two per cent of their market. They have a different design and we have the equipments to make batteries for them," S B Ganguly, chairman of Exide told PTI in New Delhi.
The company is in the process of designing as per the requirement in the US market. Once that is done it would be sent to the US for testing, Ganguly said.
General Motors, world's largest car manufacturer, is procuring their 100 per cent requirement from Exide for their Indian operations, he said adding that discussions were on for such contracts in the US with various other manufacturers.
Exide, which has recently bought a company CBSEA in Singapore for Rs 17 crore (Rs 170 million) and enhanced its exposure in Sri Lanka based battery manufacturer ABM, is scouting for a similar partner for the South African market.
Ganguly, however expressed concern over the import duty on lead, a main input for battery manufacturing.