India is racing to build a domestic lithium-ion battery industry to power its electric vehicle push, renewable energy storage, and reduce reliance on oil and gas imports. While most Indian companies today only assemble battery packs using cells imported from China and South Korea, an investment led by Reliance, Tata's Agratas, Ola Electric, Exide, and others could add over 700 GWh of manufacturing capacity across states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu. Government incentives are backing this shift, and experts see LFP battery chemistry as the best fit for India's climate, costs, and mass-market vehicles.
Today, India imports nearly all its lithium, nickel, and cobalt, and a majority of its graphite and manganese, leaving it exposed to a handful of countries such as Chile, Indonesia, Congo, and South Africa that control most of the world's reserves. Battery recycling offers a partial solution by recovering these metals from used batteries, but India's recycling ecosystem is still fragmented and underdeveloped. Closing gaps in skilled talent, testing infrastructure, and local equipment manufacturing, alongside securing mineral supply chains, will determine whether India becomes a genuine battery manufacturing and recycling hub or remains reliant on imports for years to come.
This report offers a deep dive into India's lithium-ion battery (LIB) ecosystem, examining the challenges holding back manufacturing scale-up and the steps needed to address them, along with the path forward on recovering critical minerals through recycling. It also explains how and why India remains dependent on imports for critical minerals.
