“Inside Tata’s Attempt To Make A Battery Cell Without Chinese Help”, Swarajya, Aug 14, 2026.
“On 4 August, Bloomberg reported that Agratas, the battery business owned by Tata Sons, is building a pilot production line for lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells at its plant in Sanand, Gujarat. A pilot line is a small version of a factory, built to find out whether a process works before the full line is committed. Agratas had decided to work out that process itself, because its executives had concluded that no Chinese company would teach it to them.
A team of Indian, South Korean and Chinese engineers would run the pilot line, improve the process, and check that the first cells coming off it were good enough. Only then would the real factory start.
Bloomberg’s report also carried this line — an Agratas spokesperson did not comment on the plans for a pilot line, or on the technology being developed for LFP cells.
Within two days, that sentence had been forgotten. Indian websites carried headlines announcing that Tata’s battery arm had developed indigenous lithium cell technology. One said the company held proprietary technology. Another said it was working towards cells that would beat the Chinese ones now on the market. None of this came from Agratas.
A company that had finished developing a battery technology would say so in a press release, with numbers attached. A company at the start of a long piece of engineering waits until it has something to show……………………….”
Read the full article at Swarajya.
