Tata Motors is looking to strengthen its research and development (R&D) capabilities with fresh hiring and upskilling of the current employees this fiscal year. In the electric vehicle (EV) space, the firm is looking to improve its expertise in the battery packs and vehicle architecture area, among others. Tata Motors President Passenger Vehicle and Electric Vehicles Shailesh Chandra told the media that as far as hiring in R&D is concerned the company is going for major hiring, particularly this year. The company has also looked very deeply into another area, which is upskilling the existing engineers within R&D. Tata Motors in line with its development aspirations and business plans for the next few years is hiring across various verticals like product development, supply chain, operations, advanced engineering, and commercial functions at various levels. Chandra said that there would be improved partnerships with other group entities, including Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) going ahead to improve capabilities. There is a lot of partnership that will happen with various Tata companies, including JLR. So capabilities will not be restricted to Tata Motors but also to see the opportunities of synergies with JLR and other Tata firms, which have a lot of capability in the software area. Chandra said the company has begun to develop capabilities in the battery packs, motor design, and new architecture area, among other essential functionalities. The company is looking at each of the commercial vehicles (CV), passenger vehicles (PV) fleet segments, and the personal segment. The company is trying to see where potential synergies can be in the area of the motor as far as in the area of batteries, particularly the chemistry that the firm would like to select, the form factors, and the CE rating because of the fast-charging capability and all. He said there are specific areas where the auto major has witnessed convergence, especially small commercial vehicles and the fleet segment and PVs. Image Source Also read: Tata Motors increases capex by 30% to Rs 32,000 crore in FY23