Tata taps China’s Chery for premium EV push, sources say

New Delhi: plans to license an automaking platform from China’s , four people familiar with the matter told Reuters, as the Indian car company seeks to get its delayed premium EVs back on track.

While Chinese carmakers remain largely shut out of the world’s third-largest auto market, their technology is quietly becoming hard to avoid, as local manufacturers lean on it to stay competitive in the global EV race.

Tata, India’s biggest electric carmaker, will use Chery’s platform to locally build EVs under its premium with plans for at least two cars, the first of which will be launched in 2027, three of the people said.

The strategy marks a pivot from Tata’s original plan to use Jaguar Land Rover’s electrified modular architecture (EMA) for Avinya models targeted for 2025. That roadmap collapsed last year when JLR shelved plans to build EMA-based EVs in India, forcing into a reset, Reuters previously reported.

Chery’s platform deal is expected to make up for the lost time, granting Tata access to advanced features and technology it would otherwise take longer and more capital to develop, the people said.