Good day, welcome to Tata Motors Q4 and Full Year FY 2023 Results Call. I am joined today by Mr. P.B. Balaji, Group CFO, Tata Motors; Mr. Girish Wagh, Executive Director, Tata Motors; Mr. Shailesh Chandra, MD, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles Limited and Tata Passenger Electric Mobility Limited; Mr. Adrian Mardell, Interim CEO, Jaguar Land Rover; Mr. Richard Molyneux, acting CFO, Jaguar Land Rover; and my colleagues from the Investor Relations team. Today, we plan to walk you through the results presentation followed by Q&A. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in listen-only mode, and we will be taking questions via the Teams platform, which is already open for you to submit your questions. You are requested to mention your name and the name of your organization when submitting the questions. Now I request Balaji to kindly take us through the presentation.
Thank you. Firstly, welcome all of you for the Q4 FY 2023 Analyst Call. Our intention is to quickly run you through the numbers and any color that we may want to give and then spend as much time as possible on the Q&A as normal. A standard safe harbor statement. Nothing delta to report this time. Go to the next slide, please. A pretty action-packed quarter, both here as well as in JLR. We are there at the Auto Expo, which we gave a bit of a color in our last results call. On top of that, we also had the launch of the Tiago EV, and Shailesh will, I'm sure, is gonna talk about that. We finished the first 10,000 sales of Tiago EV already. We also completed the sale of Ford Sanand facility.
That has been done. The final tranche of INR 3,750 crores has also been received from the TPG monies. Overall, on the e-mobility space, as well as the zero emission mobility space, a lot of work happening and portfolio continue to increase. Next slide. That's in India. Into JLR, again, an equally action-packed quarter, where starting point is announcement of the blockbuster, the Range Rover BEV launching in October, launching next year, for which bookings start from October this year. Also we started talking about the Jaguar BEV launches as well, which I'm sure Adrian and Richard will talk about. We also talked about a long-term investment plan under our Reimagine for a GBP 15 billion investment over the next five years. The whole electrification roadmap continues to accelerate.
At the same time, a very fundamental call on the House of Brands, where we will amplify the individual brands, that's Range Rover, Defender, Discovery and Jaguar, in a big way, while continuing to be almost equivalent of an Intel Inside as far as the Land Rover is concerned. Its features, I'm sure there'll be a lot of questions on that which we can pick up both today as well as on the Investor Day coming up. Next slide. Fair to say it has been an extremely satisfying quarter. The reason I use that word is that nice to see all the auto verticals coming together once again, and this time with a lot of intensity as well.
Both the alignment of the vectors are there and the magnitude of the vectors are also increasing, which is what has translated into a strong set of numbers for the quarters, resulting in a multiple highs, and I'll quickly cover that in the coming slides. We ended the year on a pretty strong note with a revenue of INR 1 lakh crore at an EBITDA of 13.3% and a profit before tax and exceptional item of INR 5,000 crore. On a full year basis, we hit our highest ever revenue at INR 3.5 lakh crore and ended the year with a positive free cash flow of INR 7,800 crore.
Despite a very weak start in Q1 and Q2, which you see in the numbers, the business has been sequentially improving its performance and doing it in significant stretches. Very happy with the way we have ended. Next slide, please. Source of growth. The quarter, we grew by about 35%, of which volume and mix contributed 24% of the 35, and the price came in at 10.5. Price is still a very strong variable in our growth agenda. Profitability, 3.2% went to 6.8%, and all business is contributing to it. JLR coming at a very large swing there, contributing to the 2.8% out of the delta there. Again, debt continues to reduce at INR 43,700 crores.
TML India at INR 6,200 crores. JLR, GBP 3 billion, that is the INR 30,000 crores we talk about. The FY 2024 net debt reduction plan, we are confirming we'll not be in a position to meet the FY 2024 numbers, but very clearly, FY 2025, we want this issue sorted out. Next slide. A series of headlines. Normally we don't do that, but it's fair to just pull back and reflect on what this quarter and the year actually means for the group, for us. It's each one of us in this call, we feel strongly about this. The highest ever revenue in a quarter, the highest ever EBITDA in a quarter, one of the strongest PBTs that we have delivered, and all three auto verticals simultaneously profitable, strong net debt reduction.
That's all the quarter numbers. If you factor in that the first half was a very weak first half, we still delivered the highest ever revenue. We have the highest EBITDA since 2015. Very strong PBT, I mean, factoring in the weak start. India net debt lowest in the last 15 years. It's worthwhile just to mull over it to say I would say that the potential of this business is slowly starting to come out, and that's what we would want to build on when we go into FY 2024. This has basically given us the interest to how we want to play FY 2024. Next slide. This is also something which we are happy about.
A dividend of INR 2 per share for the ordinary shareholders and INR 2.1 for the DVR shareholders coming after some time. The board has recommended this, and this will have to be approved in the ensuing shareholders meeting. This will result in a cash flow of INR 771 crores as part of the plan of debt, is factored into the debt reduction plan in any case. Again, very happy to see this. This has been a key demand for the retail shareholders. I always maintain the turnaround is not complete unless we pay dividends. Nice to see this number coming through as well. Next slide. With this, I think, let me hand it over to Richard, who will walk you through the numbers and between him and Adrian, they'll cover the JLR section.
Richard, over to you.
Great. Thanks. Can you hear me okay?
Yes. Absolutely.
Okay. Balaji's already explained some of the positive future announcements for JLR, I get the chance to go through some positive historical financials as well. If we go to the next chart, left-hand side of this is last year by quarter. If you look through retail sales, I'm very glad to see us back over 100,000 units of retail sales for the quarter. That's up 20% versus Q3, and up 30% year-on-year. If you look through all of the financial metrics on this chart through revenue, EBIT, down to free cash flow, note that for each and every metric improves in each and every quarter. We have demonstrated strong, consistent growth through the year. In Q4, our revenue, GBP 7.1 billion.
That is the highest revenue that we have seen since FY 2019. EBITDA, 14.6%, 6.5% EBIT. Strong PBT, and GBP 850 million worth of cash in the quarter. If you look at the second half of the year, we generated GBP 1.3 billion worth of cash. That also is the strongest H2 cash performance for seven years, since FY 2016. Strong performance in Q4. If you look at the full year, although there is some movement back in retails, that's a natural effect of dealers destocking when we had tight supply and restocking now that supply is coming back on stream. Revenue was GBP 23 billion. We produced GBP 2.4 billion EBIT for the year.
PBT was GBP -64 million, if you look through that, just like the old adage, game of two halves. PBT in the first half of the year was GBP -697 million. In the second half of the year, it was positive GBP 638 million. Free cash flow for the year, GBP 521 million. Also, the best full year cash flow since FY 2016. We ended the year with GBP 3.8 billion worth of cash, GBP 5.3 billion worth of liquidity, and GBP 3 billion worth of net debt. We have had, like I say, a strong, consistent year. We do exit the year performing well. We also have an order bank, which currently stands at 200,000 units to assist us as we go through the start of this year.
Okay, next chart. I won't read through this. This is a written version of most of the comments that I've made. Feel free to read it at your leisure afterwards. We go again. Right. This is our wholesale performance. Wholesales for the quarter, 95,000 units, 19% up on the previous quarter. That's been driven by a much more stable and expanding production system. Our production actually increased from 83,000 units in Q3 to 98,000 units in Q4. That's also up 18%. That's what's allowed us to increase our wholesales and meet our customer demand in the period. The balance of our wholesales remains reasonably consistent. Circa 50% of them are Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, Evoque, et cetera.
Defender is another 25%, so 75%, 76% between those two brands. Full year basis, the analysis is the same. 50% Range Rover, 25% Defender. You'll note we're still selling 43,000 Jaguars. We are still making sure that those cars stay current. We've invested in technology on the F-Pace. We've invested in special editions to mark the 75th anniversary of Jaguar as a sports car manufacturer. We still are investing in those brands as well. Full year, 321,000 wholesales. Next chart. If you look at this on a regional basis, you'll see reasonably strong through each region in the quarter. The one exception I'll call out and explain is North America. That's not an issue of fundamental demand, that's just our allocation and timing.
Although it looks like a reduction there, where you look at retails in North America quarter-on-quarter, it was 23,600 in Q3, 22,300 in Q4, so hardly changed. Our customer order bank in North America is flat quarter-on-quarter. That isn't a fundamental change in the demand signal from North America, it's just our timing of allocations. All other regions strong, including China, which progressed in Q4 as well. Full year, very similar picture. I won't go through that. Worth saying on the right-hand side that the proportion of our electrified vehicle is increasing. If you look at the BEV and the PHEV section at the bottom from 11%-17%, that's the result of our, I'll say, increasingly compelling PHEV offers.
We have increased both the range and the performance of several of the PHEVs in the range, and that is starting to show through in the market, along with the removal of some supply constraints that have impacted that. We have had a significant increase in the share of our PHEV vehicles in our wholesales. Next chart. In terms of a financial walk, this takes PBT from the same quarter last year, where it was GBP 9 million, to this quarter, GBP 368 million. The biggest variable is volume and mix. You can see there, actually probably worth mentioning that mix is a higher effect than volume. This comes back to some of the issues around quality of sales that we've been pushing during the past few months and will continue to push.
That mix is driven by Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, but it is also driven by trim mix within our ranges and making sure that we are continuing to allocate those chips and components that we have to the vehicles which are most favorable for us. Volume and mix, very favorable. If you look at pricing and material cost together, this is the picture that I expected to happen and that I told you would happen when we sat down last quarter. We've moved to a position where our output inflation in terms of our pricing is now higher than our input inflation. That wasn't the case last quarter. Last quarter, pricing was GBP 165 million favorable, and material cost was GBP 340 million adverse.
We have flipped that through the quarter, and we would intend for that to continue. Going through to SG&A, through a bit of a care point there for us, SG&A is increasing. That is partly marketing as we start to move to a scenario where we do want to trigger some more demand at the back end of this coming year, and also partly the investments in our transformation, particularly in terms of our digital transformation as a company. Operational FX, it did exactly what you would expect it to do. On a quarter-by-quarter basis, sterling has weakened. That helps us from a transactional basis, but does give us a hit in terms of realized FX and unrealized commodities.
The weakening of sterling versus the dollar gave us a favorable revaluation on our dollar-denominated loans, which you would also expect. Fundamentally, the move in PBT quarter-to-quarter is volume to mix, volume and mix, and we've managed to offset input inflation and output inflation. Next chart. This looks then at the move of that PBT through to cash. The key here is in the middle section of here, cash profit after tax and investment is favorable, GBP 400 million in the quarter. Working capital continues to move in our favor. That is partly natural. As our business expands, our payables expand faster than our receivables. Also partly from some deliberate measures and initiatives that we've put in place, using fairly advanced digital techniques, for example, to reduce our component inventory during the period.
That is partly natural, and partly from some deliberate efforts on our side, generated the GBP 815 million worth of free cash flow that we reported. Next chart. In terms of investment, total investment for the year was just under GBP 2.4 billion. That is an increase. The biggest part of that increase is in engineering, which rose from GBP 1.3 billion - GBP 1.7 billion. That's a natural part of our product cycle. Now, you know that we have a large series of launches coming between the end of next year and 2026. Well, those are at the high point of the engineering at the moment. That's what's driving that expense up a bit.
What you'll also see is that as those programs go through their various gateways and start to move to production, they get more capitalized. Our capitalization ratio is slowly increasing. It was 53% in the quarter versus 48% last quarter. For the full year, it was, sorry, 43% versus 35% last year. We would expect that capitalization to continue to increase, probably to around the 60% range. We've also said, Balaji repeated this earlier on, that this investment number will increase. We're expecting it to be around GBP 3 billion a year for the next five years as we continue to invest in both our electrified vehicles, the electrified powertrains themselves, and the electrical systems that support them. Okay, next chart. Right, now moving on to a business update.
Okay, if we move forward. This chart, which shows our average revenue per unit, is really important and part of the demonstration of our journey towards modern luxury. We've managed to increase our average revenue consistently over the last five years. In FY 2023, it moved up from GBP 62,000 - GBP 71,000, up by 15%. Part of that is the increased production of Range Rover, Range Rover Sport. Even within the vehicle lines, we have continued to increase our focus on the higher level trims, including, for example, SV. The Range Rover SV, which was only launched October 2021, we already got 6,100 orders at an average transaction price of GBP 180,000. We've even been testing the water north of that.
We did a special Edition, Lansdowne Edition of the Range Rover SV, which transacted at around GBP 250,000. There is room for us to operate in this space if we continue with diligence our modern luxury journey. Next page. In terms of semiconductors, I think people have mentioned this a lot. My summary, I think, is probably three things. We are seeing fewer issues now. They've not completely disappeared, but we are seeing fewer of them. Our ability to see them in advance is improving due to our relationships with the chip manufacturers and with our suppliers. When we do spot them, the number of tools at our disposals to solve those problems is increasing. They are proving less of a, I'm gonna say nuisance, that's probably an understatement, than they were last year.
They could still come back to bite us, but it is considerably improving. Next chart. Okay. Key for us is to make sure that we are progressively and in a stable manner, bringing our supply up to continue to build our order bank down. Yes, and to to to meet our customers' expectations for the arrival of their vehicles that they've ordered. We are showing good progress in terms of getting Range Rover and Range Rover Sport through our facility in Solihull. Went up to 2,600 units per week during Q4. We expect that rise to continue progressively as we go through next year, pushing north of 3,000 units per week during the year. Next chart. Inflation is still an issue for us. We do have considerable headwinds.
We've shown them here at GBP 850 million for the year, of which about 40% are commodity prices and about a third was semiconductors. The rest is energy and labor cost, both with us and with our supply base. We knew these were coming. We spent a large portion of last year, doubling down on our Refocus savings. Can proudly say that we've offset that and more than offset that in terms of our Refocus savings during the year. A lot of that was very detailed work in terms of making sure that we allocated those chips that we had for the vehicles that we wanted to sell. There was also considerable work done on the cost side, on the investment side, and on the inventory side.
In total, we delivered GBP 1.1 billion savings through the Refocus programs, and that did offset the inbound inflation that we saw during the year. Next chart. China. Look, we're really proud of the results of our China JV. It is the best financial results for five years. If you look on the left-hand side, look, the segments of the market that we're operating in are relatively stable, and our share of those segments is also relatively stable. Look, we know that market is really fast-moving, really dynamic. In the sections that we're operating in, we are maintaining our share. If you look at the financials on the right-hand side, it looks a little bit as if imports, average revenue per unit isn't increasing as much as the global.
That's a little bit of a misconception. There's some profits from our PNA operation, our after-sales operation. If you look purely at vehicle average sales per unit for the imported volume, it is up 8% year-over-year. From a profitability standpoint, we were PBT positive in the quarter, 13% EBITDA, 2% EBIT. On a full year basis, we were also PBT positive, and EBIT and EBITDA were both 5% higher than FY 2022. Very good, consistent progress within our China JV. Best financial year for five years. Next chart. Right. Fun pictures. We're continuing to develop our product range. If you look at the 2024 model year Velar on the right-hand side, that's as close to a flawless execution of our modernist design language as you're gonna get. It's just beautiful.
We have made some tweaks to the exterior. We've made some technology upgrades. For example, the PHEV now has a 20% higher range than it did beforehand. It goes 40 miles WLTP without charge. On the interior, there are also some upgrades. That vehicle is upgraded. On the right is the Range Rover Sport SV. You will want one. They are gonna be phenomenal. As I've mentioned beforehand, we're extremely proud of the success of our Range Rover SV, and we've received 6,100 orders for that. We haven't even announced or started taking orders for this one yet. Next chart. Looking ahead, we are optimistic. We exited FY 2023 in a much stronger position than we started it.
We're on the right trajectory, and we have had strong and consistent progress. We think FY 2024 is gonna be a good year for us. In reality, the first half may be a little bit slower, I expect the second half of the year to be stronger than the first half. We do have the momentum that we're looking for and we will have a good year. Our priorities is to continue to build our supply availability, our robustness, the accuracy with which we give our suppliers our forecasts. We'll continue to focus on brand activation. There is a lead time with that. We have to start doing some of that now to activate orders towards back end of the year. We're gonna execute our plans. From a financial perspective, we're saying we're gonna deliver 6%+ EBIT.
GBP 2 billion free cash flow after investment, which means our net debt will reduce from GBP 3 billion at the end of the financial year just finished, to circa GBP 1 billion 12 months from now. That's it from my side. I'm sure we'll take some questions afterwards, thanks very much for the meantime.
Thank you. Thanks, Richard. Quickly moving on to commercial vehicles. Next slide, please. The registration market shares after the correction to the approach to a demand pull strategy are now starting to recover. Q4 better than Q3. Barring one, which is the what used to be called intermediate light commercial vehicles. MHCV is where we still need to get some further impetus on that. Very much part of the plan the Girish and team are working towards. Everything else starting to sequentially start improving. Next slide. On the overall volumes, the callout here is the powertrain mix that you see, with the CNG prices now coming under a policy and therefore expecting some stabilization in terms of deltas between that and diesel. One would expect to see the CV numbers, sorry, CNG numbers starting to change as well. Next slide.
Overall revenue, happy that we ended the quarter with a double-digit EBITDA, something that we said we want to get to as soon as possible. The business ended the year pretty strong with a revenue of INR 21,000 crores and an EBITDA of 10.1%. Clearly with market share starting to inch up as well as profitability starting to improve, the business is on the right track. Further distance to go, but very much on track. Next slide. The source of monies, if you see, where the profitability came from, volume mix, realizations, savings, all coming through quite nicely, we intend to keep it this way as we go forward. Thank you.
The other big one is the consumer-facing metrics, which is very, very important on a demand pull strategy to ensure that the brand is in a strong wicket. Very happy with the way things are starting to move. The brand is with the interventions coming through, be it the power, the brand power, the consideration top box, top of mind awareness, all trending in the right direction with some very good numbers even at a geographical level as well. Of course, the dealer satisfaction as well as the composite satisfaction score doing pretty well. Next slide. Let me give it to Girish to give an overall update on the business. Girish?
Yeah, thanks, Balaji. I think the industry continued its growth in volumes and one saw growth of 22% over the same quarter last year. In annual terms, a growth of almost 34%. I think during the year, we launched more than 40 new products and 150 variants in addition to what we had unveiled in the Auto Expo. As Balaji mentioned, we had highest annual and quarterly revenue for FY 2023 and Q4 of FY 2023. I think as we started our discount production strategy from Q3, and as we continued ahead, we were able to grow our Vahan share, the registration share in Q4 versus Q3, with focus on continuously improving the product and service competitiveness as well as our communication to the customer.
I think the non-vehicle business, which has been a significant area of focus, grew by almost 33%. Both spares and service penetration has been continuously improving for last three years now. All this, the EBIT improved sequentially and is now highest in 21 quarters, most of it coming from discount pullback, part of it from cost reduction and also commodity softening, which happened in H2. While the entire industry grew by 22% and 34% over the last year, I think the good part was significant growth in the medium and heavy commercial vehicles, almost 52% over the last year. The passenger segment, especially the buses, which were almost down and out during COVID, have seen a very good growth finally in the year gone by.
As we showed some metrics, our continuous focus to improve the brand health through judicious mix of ATL communication, digital communication, and also a lot of influencer advocacy, has actually led to a good improvement in net promoter score. In fact, net promoter score has reached the highest ever level now to 71, and the brand power also grew by 170 basis points. I think both at very good levels. We have transitioned the entire portfolio to BS6 phase II. In line with our philosophy, once again, we have gone beyond mere compliance to the regulations. Across the range in each and every product, we have further strengthened the superiority in terms of total cost of ownership, comfort and convenience, connectivity in terms of Fleet Edge, as well as the safety features, which have been added, especially in the trucks.
On to CNG, interestingly, I think, with the new guideline, apart from reduction in the CNG prices, I think the biggest uncertainty which was in the minds of the customers was about the difference in CNG prices with respect to diesel, and for that matter, even petrol. This uncertainty had led to drop in CNG volumes significantly. With this new pricing guideline, not only the CNG prices have dropped, but it is also getting pegged with diesel, which will gradually start bringing in good certainty in the minds of the customer, and we will see the CNG penetration increase. Towards this, I think we have a very strong CNG portfolio, both in ICEs as well as MCs. Last year we launched our CNG vehicles in heavy trucks, as also our Intra portfolio. I think we have CNG presence across the portfolio now.
Going ahead for, this quarter as well as FY 2024, I think we will continue our focus on the retail now, and, registration share is what will drive us, and we will continue the realization, improvement journey. As I said, I think the BS6 phase II products have come up with a lot of, value enhancements, features, and performance improvement. There will be a lot of efforts to communicate this, not just to the customers, but also other stakeholders who play a very important role in decision-making. Therefore, there will be a lot of influencer advocacy as well as actual in-field trials. Getting into this year, I think we will now start scaling up EV supplies with, the supply chain being resolved, FAME certification clarity being there.
Both on Ace EV as well as the electric buses, which are meant for the CESL tender. Downstream business will continue to grow, being a focus area for us. In international markets, we will continue to play safe. We will maintain or grow market shares, ensure that the margin and channel health is protected, and we will also see some of the new markets which we can enter during the year. Next slide. Coming to the electric mobility. I think we have completed all our electric bus deliveries meant to be done to Delhi Transport Corporation and Nagpur City. In addition to that, we already started delivery of the CESL first tender with the Delhi Transport Corporation buses. In addition to that, also a few retail customers or orders that we have received.
We have delivered more than 300 ACE electric vehicles in the fourth quarter. Here on we can start ramping up significantly, as I said earlier, with clarity on supply chain as well as the FAME certification. I think in Auto Expo we made a clear statement on our future roadmap in terms of net zero greenhouse gas emissions and the decarbonization plan with the display of 14 product concepts. On the smart city mobility, as I said, I think the concession agreements have been signed with Delhi Transport Corporation for 1,500 buses. The supply has already been initiated, which will be followed by Bangalore for more than 900 buses and then Jammu and Kashmir for 200 buses.
I think now our e-bus fleet has crossed more than seven crore or 70 million kilometers, we have been able to maintain more than 95% uptime in FY 2023. We have been delivering better than the contractual conditions. The operational revenue has also been ahead of our own internal budget, doing well at around INR 500 crores. Coming to the digital businesses. Fleet Edge continues to do very well now with more than 390,000 connected trucks towards the end of FY 2023. The monthly active usage is continuously increasing. The customers are seeing a lot of value in terms of improvement in vehicle uptime, asset utilization. It's also helping them for better tracking and optimizing the usage and driving habits leading to improvement in the total cost of ownership.
I think the clear benefits, which are being seen, as a result of which I think the penetration is continuously increasing. In fact, I'm happy to share that from first April, we've also introduced the subscription model for the Fleet Edge, and we have seen a very good encouraging response to this model. As I said, the engagement time has been improving consistently with the benefits being experienced by the fleet owners as well as the drivers. e-Dukaan, which is our online spare parts marketplace, it grew better than what we had targeted. In fact, it grew 2.8 x, although on lower base, but doing pretty well. We also extended e-Dukaan for diesel exhaust fluid as well as lubricants. This will help us to grow these two business lines also.
I think digital lead generation has been a focus area for us, and this has helped us not just to generate leads, but also communicate our brand message, product competitiveness and other aspects. This has led to improved brand health, and it therefore augurs very well for the future. That's what we've been doing in the commercial vehicle business. I, Balaji, back to you for PV.
Thanks, Girish. Moving on to the PV numbers. PV&E. Next slide, please. Call out here is the, in PV as well, we are now going to report only Vahan registration market shares. We find that to be a far more reliable and closer to the customer metric. The powertrain mix is another call-out there, where we're seeing penetration of EVs rising to 9% and we see CNG sitting at 8% there. Next slide. Here again, on the registration market shares of EVs growing to 84%. Network now increasing to 165 cities and 250 dealerships. Charging infra again increasing to 5,300 there. Next slide. Overall financials, we ended the quarter at 7.3% EBITDA, with a PBT of INR 200 crores.
On a full year basis, the business was 6.4% EBITDA with a PBT of INR 700 crore. Therefore, this business is now strongly profitable in terms of EBITDA. We've still got a distance to go to cover the 10%, but happy to see from where we have come to the 6.4%. At the same time, EBITDA positive, EBIT positive, PBT positive, and cash positive. One additional data point which we have pulled in this time is the EV financials. There has been a lot of queries that you've been asking. I also see a question saying that if I add EV + PBT, it doesn't add up to this one. There are some intercompany that need to be canceled off as well as part of consolidation.
On the revenues, this business is now making a EBITDA loss of about INR 350 odd crores. Out of the INR 350 odd, that's a 4.6% negative that you see there. Out of the INR 350 crores, INR 300 crores is product development costs that are being charged off, and therefore this business is almost EBITDA neutral, and this needs to be seen in the context of runaway increases in lithium prices. The reason I bring it out is that we believe the EV from a, from a sustainable profitability perspective is on the right track. This does not include any PLI credits or anything that is being accrued, so this is underlying profitability I'm referring to. A billion-dollar business or roughly a billion-dollar business with broadly neutral EBITDA, that is where we are on an underlying basis. Next slide.
These are obvious. The only thing, why is the structural fixed cost going up there? Substantial increase in FME, as you see the brand building up. There's also element of IPL phasing that will be there, as we go ahead of that. Employee cost is basically investment that are happening in the EV business. D&E expenses, again, as the product investments pick up there. All these are good investments that are happening for the long-term viability of this business. Next slide. Let me give it to Shailesh.
Thank you, Balaji. Let me start with the key highlights of the industry first. FY 2023 for the industry was the highest ever since last highest ever, which was in FY 2019, which was INR 3.4 million. This year ended at INR 3.9 million, which was nearly 27% growth versus FY 2022. SUVs continued to increase in terms of share, increased by 300 basis points to 43%. EVs industry saw a phenomenal growth of 170% with several new launches and increasing acceptance of EV among customers.
As far as Tata Motors PV and EV business is concerned, this was our highest ever wholesale year, which was nearly INR 5.4 lakh, with a Vahan market share of 13.5%. This is nearly 45% growth as compared to FY 2022, which was, you know, if you just compare with industry growth, which was 27%. EV sales crossed a major milestone of 50,000. This includes about 2,200 volumes that we did in international business. Vahan market share was around 84% despite increasing competition. I already mentioned that in PV business we grew by 45% as compared to FY 2022. It was a growth of 150% in the EV business for us.
We were the number-one SUV manufacturer in FY 2023, and Nexon was the number-one product in the SUV segment. Going forward, what are the bright spots? We clearly see that there are several new launches happening in the SUV space, which will augur well for the growth in this financial year. CNG demand with the prices coming down is also expected to pick up. Several new launches happening in the EV space and increasing acceptance of EVs, I think this will also augur well for the EV segment. For Tata Motors, very happy to see that we transitioned to BS VI phase II early February itself, and that has really helped us to ensure a very smooth transition. Several new launches which are going to drive demand.
Nexon EV Max in hashtag version has been receiving very good response. We recently launched it. This month we are also launching the twin cylinder technology in Altroz, which is Altroz iCNG, which reclaims the entire boot space in the CNG, which is first of its kind, very innovative concept. Of course, this year we'll see, you know, some of our products going through the mid-cycle enhancement. We are only one player in at least one segment where we are still in diesel segment, that should also help us improve our sales in the diesel side. Talking about some of the challenges or headwinds, really the entry side of the PV industry, which is hatches and sedan, has been under pressure for some time.
Channel inventory as compared to where we started the last financial year, in FY 2022, is at a higher level. Pent-up demand clearly has gone down, barring certain new launches and few popular SUVs. Recently, you know, price increase has been taken by OEMs to basically offset the cost increases which have happened because of the RDE transition. This might. We have to watch the impact of this. From Tata Motors' side, the way we are preparing ourself is to focus on demand generation through micro market focus and actions to improve the conversion rates. We are growing our portfolio both on CNG and EV. Both are expected to see good growth this year, and therefore we should be the beneficiary of that.
Of course, we are driving margin improvement through an institutionalized cost reduction, initiative, as well as what we have as internal, nomenclature, nine frame, nine-box framework. Both on margin as well as demand generation, we have clear action plans laid out. Back to you, Balaji .
Thank you, Shailesh. Next slide, please.
Network issue. Just one on hold.
Can we start the call?
Yeah, the call has dropped.
Call has dropped.
Okay. I hope you can hear us. Apologies for that. We had a network outage here, which we have just got connected back again. Yeah, people are able to hear us? Let me keep moving, assuming. We'll give us a minute to see. Give us a minute. We're just confirming that you're able to hear us. Again? Okay, perfect. Moving on to the overall CV + PV system to the next section. Investments, we ended the year with about INR 6,400 crores of investment spending. This is likely to increase to INR 8,000 crores next year as we step up the whole electrification investments, both in CV and PV. That's the main cost of this delta that is coming through. Next slide.
On the cash flows, overall, the cash profit after tax and CapEx. I see in the questions what are some of the doubts lingering in terms of as how do we treat CapEx. Let me be clear. For us, what we call out as free cash flows is operating cash, less CapEx, less working capital changes, and any finance expenses that we incur. It's the entirety of it, so this is free cash flow after all these investments. This year, we ended at INR 3,800 crores of free cash flows and for this quarter. The full year, we ended at INR 2,400 crores of free cash flows after all these investments. Hearteningly, all the CapEx is funded by the cash profit after tax, so it's extremely self-sustaining business that we have.
On a full year basis, working capital in Q4 normally reverses. Full year basis, no impact at all on working capital. What we are seeing as INR 2,400 crores is completely cash profit after tax, less CapEx, less finance expenses. Next slide. Tata Motors Finance, we did signal that this business, the entire restructured portfolio, we want to have a very, very close watch on it. Two things have happened this quarter. 1 is we have taken a hard look at the restructured book and taken adequate provisions to ensure that this book now completely is taken care of. We started off the concerted collection efforts, and that has ensured that the GNPA is now starting to sharply trend down. We did 2.6% in this quarter.
The absolute numbers of GNPA are also starting to come down sharply, and we intend to maintain that. The capital adequacy remains comfortable even at these levels. The business is now pivoting squarely to quality, focusing on delivering double-digit ROE in the medium term, with a focus on improving NIMs, lowering the credit losses, and very tight control on fixed costs. Business is being run for ROE, or ROE as the case may be. Next slide. Just from a credit rating perspective, we had S&P upgrade us by a notch. Domestically, ICRA has also revised our outlook to positive, and we will be engaging with them after the results for the others as well. Next slide. We do invite you for the, for the Investor Day, both in Tata Motors and in JLR.
In India, it is on June 7th in Mumbai. In JLR, it's on June 12th at Gaydon, the new headquarter of JLR. Next slide. Overall outlook, how do we see it? I think on the demand side, we remain optimistic, despite some near-term uncertainties that could be there. Inflation, we expect it to be moderate. As far as FY 2024 is concerned, as I said earlier, it's a year of where we have to deliver. We are squarely focused on putting our heads down and executing this plan and ensuring we make it count for the full year. As far as the momentum is concerned, it will build through the year. Keeping in mind there is an element of seasonality. JLR is stabilizing its supply chain from where it has come, so we want to stabilize it.
Of course, there is a post-RDE impact in India. That's the only reason we are calling this out as a momentum building through the year, so we don't get carried away. At the same time, the plans of JLR continuing to... Which, Richard just talked about. CV ensure the demand pool strategy continues. Double-digit EBITDA to be delivered and profitable growth in all the business verticals that Girish talked about. That's an important priority for us. PBEs, the plans continue to remain aggressive. With this, let me end the talk from our side and move it on to Q&A. We already have a fair number of questions that has come through. Let me pick them up one by one in the order in which they actually appeared. Firstly, it's coming from Binay, talking about EV financials.
I think I covered, Binay, the PV + ICE revenues, why they are more than the PV business. TMDTC Trilix, we don't wanna comment on the smaller subsidiaries that are there. They are design centers, they don't materially move the needle. They should be treated as part of the design cost that we incur. PLI not considered, government grants, nothing as far as the EV business, nothing has been considered that are there. Headwind statements, let me give it on to Shailesh to talk about, because that's also coming through in one other question as well.
Sure. You know, as far as, let me talk first about the ICE segment. As far as tailwinds are concerned, I think, what is really going to support growth are going to be the new launches, refreshes that will be launched by the various OEMs in this financial year. We are still seeing the demand in terms of bookings of the industry are remaining strong. That's a good news that demand has not dropped. Of course, you know, there are certain segments, especially the entry segment, which I mentioned, is under pressure and, with interest rates even now are also impacting the vehicle financing interest rates and all will have some impact or definitely again on the entry segment. As far as EVs are concerned, there's hardly any headwind that I see.
I only see the tailwinds. There are several launches which are gonna happen in this space, and that is going to expand the market. There is a growing acceptance of EVs among the consumers, and that is continuing to help. We are seeing every quarter, the industry is growing big in size. In fact, if you really see, the monthly rate of sales of EVs has grown to 8,500-9,000 per month for the industry, which is very high. Just one year back, it would have been 4,000 or so. I believe that EV industry will have all these tailwinds, apart from, you know, the various states which are also coming with very progressive policies, PLI and all. The environment is very favorable for EVs.
Thank you, Shailesh. Richard, first question coming to you, and then, Adrian, something coming your way as well. Can you give us the push-pull factors for margins next year? This is coming from Kapil. You're currently at 6.5%. Guidance is 6%+. How does this work out? Some color would be helpful.
Yeah, of course. We're expecting volumes next year to be circa 400,000. A little bit higher than our Q4 run rate. On the positive side, we're also expecting supplier inflation to start to reduce. Some of it will become embedded in terms of their labor rates. Some of it in terms of commodity rates and utility rates is starting to show signs of coming off the peaks. On the other side, we at the moment have foreign exchange rates that are slightly less favorable than we had during the course of Q4. We will need to start investing in marketing to secure the order intake that we need towards the back end of the year.
Finally, I think, the other negative is we do expect, I saw some questions on that later on. We do expect VME to increase, but we expect that to be a creep rather than a leap. We are not going to get into mass discounting of cars. We're a model luxury player, but we do expect VME to creep up. I'd say FX, marketing and VME a little bit adverse. Volume and supplier inflation, a little bit favorable.
Thanks, Richard. Adrian, there's a series of questions coming from Chandramouli, Goldman. We have guided to a 6% EBIT margin and a GBP 2 billion cash flow this year. Last year, we started in a similar way at 5% EBIT and GBP 1 billion FCF. What is giving you the confidence that this time around things will be different? One. Second, the order bank, I also saw another question somewhere else. Order bank at 200, if you net out, sales and arrive at this, the number seems to be much lower in terms of new orders coming in. Can you give some color there? Second point. Third, a very interesting question on what's behind the thinking of the JLR rebranding.
Is it just corporate action or there is something happening on the grounds which has triggered this stuff?
Thanks, Balaji. I'll take them in the order that they've been asked. Look, for the last 12 months, we've been optimistic about breaking through on supply. The truth is, you know, for the first six months that we were too optimistic. Our break even has been in place. It's been in place for more than 12 months at the 300,000 units. Simply put, we had to build more than 25,000 cars per month, of course. We really didn't get to that point to Q3, and you can see as soon as we have got to that point, which was a mixture of overall supply with semiconductors and the MLA products. Don't forget, they're super crucial to our business model.
You know, they started to come through in proportions we need from about November last year. It's those two things which really have moved us from a loss-making to a, well, an aggressive and significant profit-making business. Breakeven's still the same. We know the supply is higher with new semiconductor supply we secured from January, and we know our MLA production units, as Richard showed in the presentation, they've grown to that 2,600 + a week. The two critical things we're waiting for happened in quarter three, continued at pace in quarter four, and we believe will continue now into FY 2024. We can see it in the data we've seen in the first six weeks. Not only have we broken through, but we can see the continuation of that into the first half of this year and beyond.
From an order bank perspective, the 200,000 units, look, it's still too high. I think that's the first point we have to make here, right? We don't have an expectation and aspiration for 200,000 units of orders. It's two reasons. It's a symptom of supply being too low and production being too low, and it's a symptom of the appeal for our vehicles that people have been prepared to wait for as long as they actually have. The reality is a healthier order bank is a lower order bank than 200,000 units. My anticipation is it will continue to fall by about the 5,000 units per month over the first half of this year.
To Richard's point, if that continues to happen and our supply increases as at that time we expect it to do so, we will be stimulating further orders. If you look at any of our websites, particularly on the most sought-after vehicle, the Range Rover, a lot of those order times are now 12 - 18 months. You know, we're not stimulating orders beyond 12 - 18 months at this point. To the proportional share point, which is in the question, 200,000 orders at the end of March, 76% of them were Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, and Defender. It's still very skewed towards our three most modern, most luxurious nameplates today. In terms of the brand question, the point there, number three, now I'll reiterate what I actually said and was quoted with in the media.
Land Rover is the trust mark for three brands. When you think about it, the characteristics of those individual brands, Range Rover, Defender, and Discovery, are different. They're underpinned by the trust mark, so the off-road capability, you know, the versatility of the vehicle, the safety within the vehicle, the technologies are in all of the brands. If we're really gonna grow our business in modern luxury, we absolutely have to focus on the distinct characterizations within those brands. Look, we know Range Rover's about luxury, quietness, serenity. We know Defender's about utility, go anywhere. We know Discovery is about, you know, a family size and the utility of being able to, in the broadest sense, use this as a family traveler vehicle. We understand those things. We have for a long time.
We have to deepen the understanding, the characteristics of those vehicles, because clients will be attracted to individually those brands, not just to Land Rover going forward. That's already clear in most of our biggest markets, China, USA, Middle East. That's why we've actually elevated those sub-brands above the trust mark called Land Rover. That's what we're going to keep working through and working on going forward. Thank you, Balaji.
Thank you. Thanks, Adrian. This is coming from Gemma, JP Morgan. I think this question is picked up by someone else as well, saying that, "Can we give color on the free cash flow guidance and the net debt reduction for next year? How much of it is due to working capital, and how much of it is due to underlying cash flows?" One kind of a question. Second kind of a question within that, "You're increasing CapEx to GBP 3 billion, but still guiding for a debt going down to GBP 1 billion." Richard, can you reconcile the two for us?
Yeah, sure. We are going to increase our investment from, I think it was GBP 2.35 billion this year to GBP 3 billion next year. Even considering that increase of GBP 650,000 million of investment, we are anticipating and expect to generate beyond that GBP 2 billion worth of cash to take our net debt position down from GBP 3 billion- GBP 1 billion. In terms of the proportion of that cash generation that is operational and working capital, I'd say certainly for the first half of the year, the majority of it will be operational. Working capital a little bit more in the second half of the year. If you only need to look at our cash flow generation in the last six months.
Yeah, GBP 1.3 billion after, about GBP 1.3 billion worth of investment in the last six months. We are a strong cash-generating business when we're functioning at the type of levels that we're talking about. Adrian has mentioned several times our break-even volume is around 300,000 units. I've mentioned that next year we should be operating at 400,000 units. That's where we get our, both EBIT and cash returns from.
Thank you. Thanks, Richard. One question, if Ben is there, do you intend to come to the bond market and will you do some senior secured debt? The second, the latter part I can answer, clear answer, no. First part, Ben, over to you.
Sure. So I think that, you know, at some point, we will come back to the bond market. We've been a regular issuer, but I think we'll just keep monitoring the market for the right time. I think part of it is our financial performance is improving, as we've talked about here today. You know, there is potentially some benefit to continuing to wait as we expect that to continue. On the other hand, there are plenty of uncertainties. In terms of needing to go to the market, I don't think there is any need. As has been explained, we expect significant positive cash flow in the year, and that is after significant investment spending. We don't need to fund investment spending. I think it would be more a matter of managing our liabilities.
Thank you. Thanks, Ben. Question to Richard and then another one to Shailesh. This from Rakesh via BNP Paribas. JLR's investment of GBP 15 billion, can you give us a rough idea of how much of this is going into R&D, EV product development? How much is going into ICE?
Yes. Look, this year, our total engineering went up by GBP 400 million to GBP 1.69 billion. I would expect that to continue to increase a little bit next year. However, the majority of the increase over the next couple of years is gonna be in capital as we industrialize all of our 2024, 2025, and 2026 car lines into Solihull, which is where we'll be producing Jaguar and where we'll be producing the Range Rover BEV and into Halewood, which is where we'll be producing EMA. In the short term it will be partly an increase in engineering. In the next 18 months, 2 years, capital will be the primary part of the increase.
Okay.
Okay, go on.
Go for it, Richard. Finish.
No, I was just gonna say, look, in terms of EV and ICE, look, we are going to have to continue to invest in ICE to meet the Euro 7 regulations that came through. However, obviously the vast balance of our efforts is in the EV space, as the majority of the launches that we have, post now are EVs.
Thank you. Question to Shailesh. In terms of the domestic PV market, competition is obviously picking up, especially with clear head-on competition to Nexon and Punch. Any ideas of how you're preparing to defend your volume and market share?
Yes. see, you know, we have seen in the past also, and you know, last year also, we have seen that in SUV segments, whenever there is a new model which gets launched, typically the segment expands. This expands because it is, you know, channelizing flow from adjacent segments into the SUV segment. This has been at the cost of, you know, hatches going down or sedans going down. I think that phenomena is going to continue, despite. In Nexon segment, we have already seen that this segment has seen every year addition of new models, and only this segment has expanded. We as a company have been seeing increasing volumes of Nexon. Similar thing in Punch.
This is one that there will be channelized, the volumes will get channelized from other adjacent segments to this, so the segment is going to expand. From our perspective, we will keep the excitement in these two products high through several interventions. New forever intervention we keep on bringing. Recently we brought the hashtag, Punch. We came with Camo. Also at the same time, let's take for example, Punch. We are going to bring CNG variant here with the twin-cylinder direct effect technology, and this is going to be unique in the market. We are also planning to bring EVs. We are very confident that in these two products we'll be able to sustain the volumes.
Of further actions, how we will further grow from where we are in both in terms of volume and market share, we are going to add new nameplates, and we have showcased that in Auto Expo. Curvv, Sierra, these are new nameplates which are gonna get launched. There's going to be a steep increase in the EV volumes. We are expanding our portfolio in the CNG segment, so I think we have several levers which are going to increase our volumes as well as market share.
Thanks, Shailesh. Next is from Binay Singh. I think the JLR side of the questions have all been answered, so let me move to the PV side. I think that's also coming from Ashish later on as well. India PV, volumes are at 540,000, and at this level capacity utilization extremely high, 65% SUV share. From here on, what is therefore the margin improvement drivers and why is the margin still not as strong as others who are there in the market, and your plans for the same?
You know, one thing I would like to say that last year if you see the EBIT has increased by 300 basis points, so it is an improving trend and significantly improving trend. The whole benefit of operating leverage has been fully realized. The margins at a contribution level has been increasing. Of course, alongside we are also seeing a steep growth of EV business. There the margins, I think Balaji very well explained that, it is underlying margins are strong, but there is a huge product development expense which also gets charged off, so it will have an impact. There are plans in terms of how we are going to strengthen the margins for EVs. Also, as you know, the battery prices had gone up significantly by 35%. The cell prices have gone up.
There was huge semiconductor open market purchase, which was being done. All these are factors which we reclaim back. Battery prices are going down. Semiconductor open market buys have come down. These are all positive things which are going to favorably influence the contribution for EVs. Also, there's a deep localization that we are doing which is going to further bring down the cost. There are a lot of actions on the EV side which is going to improve the margin. You know, including the new models which we are going to launch, is going to be in the SUV, higher SUV segments, which will be more better in margin.
I'm not talking even about PLI and all because, you know, we have a clear pathway to bring this to, say, at a contribution level into a double-digit margin, closer to where we were in PV. On top of that, of course, we are going to have the PLI benefit and all. On the PV side, I think, again, a richer mix is what we are expecting, in the coming years, which is going to strongly support. There's a institutionalized cost reduction plan with a very aggressive plan that we are taking, benchmarking, tearing it down, tearing down at a component level. All these actions are I'm sure that we are going to continue to improve on the margins.
Thanks. I think there's another question which actually should ask Sudhir, was guidance for a 10% margin in PV. Just to correct, that is the EBITDA margin we are referring to. That is what we want to reach, and Shailesh has already explained his drivers for the same. Question to both Shailesh and Girish, industry growth both in India, for India for CV and PV, given that the demanding base is there, how do you wanna do it? Do you want to start with CV?
Yeah. Okay. I think while the industry has grown pretty well in FY 2023 over the previous year, I think we have to keep in mind that the industry volumes are still below the previous peak of FY 2019. That's point number one. Point number two is, I think generally in the pre-election year, that is the general election, year before general elections, market has always grown, especially because of the government spending. I think this year in the budget, we are looking at almost record spending on infrastructure by the government. I think these are good tailwinds for the industry. As a result, I think the industry should grow further during this year, although it may be in single digits, and the growth may vary across the year as well as across various segments.
One would see highest growth happening probably in buses, because the buses still are at a lower level, followed by good growth in the medium and heavy commercials. It appears that the ILCVs may remain flat compared with the last year, and the small commercial vehicles may grow a bit. In terms of timing, it appears that the first quarter may degrow a bit YoY, because of some pre-buy effect, as also the transition into the BS VI phase II and the price increase which has happened. After that, one would see growth in Q2, Q3 as well as Q4. I think that's how we see how the markets will grow. Overall, it appears that we will see a single digit growth at the industry volume level.
Thanks.
On the PV side, I would say that we are very clear that the secular trend of growth of the industry is going to remain intact because of the underlying drivers, like low penetration levels. Also given that now the market is having a lot of upgrade customers, so people are wanting to upgrade their vehicles, and that is the phenomena that we have been seeing when it comes to SUV growth. Therefore, going forward, you know, while there was a very steep growth of 27% in the last financial year also, thanks to the pent-up demand and low inventory levels that we had at the start of FY 2023, I think that helped in driving this kind of growth, which was 27%. Otherwise, which could have been much lower, I would say.
This year would be, growth would be slightly moderate, in the zone of 5%-7%. I'm sure that, beyond this financial year, the growth will come back to double-digit number, is what I would say.
Thank you, Shailesh. A question from Kapil on EV margins is already covered. I think there's a question on PLI that is there in various places. Where do we stand on PLI? Shailesh, you wanna kick it there?
Yes. So, you know, as far as PLI is concerned, there have been a lot of engagement with the Ministry of Heavy Industries on this topic, and the discussions have revolved around the domestic value additions. And MHI has been very receptive of the inputs from our side. There have been several inputs that have been given. And of course, the requirement of a requirement from the MHI to establish the extent of DVA that any OEM has attained was a bit stringent, which has been brought to a level which is now practical. And we are going to be working on that and hopefully, the first, you know, model is what we are going to submit with the DVA status very soon.
From there on, you know, we'll finally secure the PLI eligibility for all our models. You know, all the models that we are selling today, as per our estimates, cross the DVA requirement. Going forward, we are very confident of availing the PLI benefit.
Thanks, Shailesh. Two questions from Kapil Singh. I think, Girish, coming your way.
Mm-hmm.
April volumes much weaker? Industry for Tata Motors, what's happening? When do you expect growth to return? Trucking conditions, how is it trending? How are dealer inventories?
Right. Kapil, first of all, on the volumes, I think, first point is because it is aligned to the retail. I think the retail volumes in April have dropped after the pre-buy effect in the month of March. As we said it, we will align our production and offtake to retail. I think that is the first thing. Second, of course, you know, as I mentioned earlier, when we have transitioned to BS VI phase II, I think there is a significant change which has been done in the entire product portfolio. Every product in the portfolio, one has seen a significant improvement in terms of power to weight ratio, total cost of ownership, comfort and convenience, safety.
As a result, there were some supply chain issues also in month of April, which will get addressed from this month of May. Finally, as I already answered, I think Q1, we see that there would be a degrowth in retail registration volumes because of the pre-buy effect, but the growth will come back from Q2. As far as trucking sentiment index is concerned, for the tippers it has gone up, which was expected. I think for other segment, which is trucks, ILCVs, small commercial vehicles, they have dipped marginally. That was also expected after a strong Q4. As I said, I think equation between headwinds and tailwinds, I think the tailwind should prevail after some time. Therefore one would still see growth happening from Q2.
In terms of dealer inventories, I mean, very happy that, the inventories continue to be healthy, especially after very good retail that happened, in Q four. We will continue at this level. Because we are matching, retail offtake production in that sequence, I think this will remain at good level. Balaji, I will take the next question also.
Yeah. Let me quickly cover that for people who are not seeing the question that you're taking here. This is on the entire EV buses GCC model. Are EV buses viable without FAME subsidy? That's basic question. Will you participate in future MSRTC orders, given that you have not participated in the recent CESL tender?
Okay, let me take the first one. See, as far as the electric buses, bulk of those are being consumed today by the government. Most of those are now also being consumed in the own operate maintain model, which is an OpEx model and not a CapEx model, right? Even if the FAME subsidies are not there, finally it will lead to some increase in the OpEx, that is the charge per kilometer. That will be part of the bids that all the OEMs will give. Will then get translated into the ticketing or the ticket rates which will be there. I don't think this should have an impact, especially on the gross cost contract model.
As far as the private customers retail models are concerned, retail customers are concerned, there is an increasing interest, because many of the corporates would also like to start moving towards their net zero goal for greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore they would like to move towards electric buses for their employee transportation. This should also continue. Lastly, I think, the 5,000 MSRTC order or any other order, I think, let me once again clarify. We did stay away from the second tender of CESL because we had requested for a payment security mechanism to the government and the government agencies, which didn't get implemented in tender two, and therefore we stayed away. A third tender was also released by CESL, in which there was only one player who bid.
All other players didn't bid because this payment security mechanism wasn't there. Therefore that tender will be rebid. We will continue to engage with the government to craft the payment security mechanism, which will make the whole model bankable. Once that is done, I think we will be very much into this game. Balaji.
Thank you. Thank you, Girish. Jinesh, you've asked a series of questions, a lot of details. My suggestion, we will take it offline with you. These numbers we can supply to you offline. Kindly pardon me for this. This is going to take a long time to go through all your questions there. Going on to Joseph, IIFL. This is the order flow conversation, which I think has already been covered. Therefore similarly, the working capital piece has also been covered. The additional new questions coming up is activation of Sanand plant. Will it bring in negative operating leverage? How do you intend to deal with it? It's fair to say some cost is coming in without the revenue. It's part of the long-term capacity planning, therefore it is part of the overall mix that we play with.
Our guidance for getting to the double-digit EBITDA includes these stuff, that's how volume is going to come, I'm not concerned about that. Coming on to Ashish. I think this is on battery, which is a new area. Let's talk about that. There are comments in the media on the battery plants in India and you, can you give some color on this? All we can say at this point in time is conversations are underway with both in India as well as in Europe. We intend to come to a conclusion sooner rather than later. When we do that, we will take you through it in greater detail so that you can understand everything related to that. Supply chain volume guidance, we don't give.
I think everything we had to say, we already said. Further guidances, we don't intend to give. Nishant, talking about India FCF generation, fair point, we talked about JLR. India will also be positive in free cash flows, and it'll be integral one more contributor to the net introduction that we have in mind, despite the INR 8,000 gross spend that we have on the CapEx. Second, this, Adrian, coming your way from Stephanie. Under the House of Brands, Jaguar intends to launch a premium GT with a pricing of, Given the recent price cuts that have come from competition, are you concerned about it?
There's work to do for sure, we're really clear in the positioning of this brand going forward. We've announced that the pricing of this will be more than 100,000 units, positioned as a very low break-even point. Work to do, not concerned at this point, no.
Thank you. The second one related the different question is: Does JLR intend to reinstate the dividend if cash flow exceeds expectations in FY 2024? The dividend policy has been approved by the board for JLR, and the board at an appropriate time will take a look at it and it'll be as per the dividend policy. Next question from Chirag. Volumes, Q1 is a base volume, and it'll keep rising. Will it lead to some adverse mix and commodity benefits are likely to flow in? JLR, Richard, you wanna take that? Then I'll come to CV here.
Yeah, sure. The 94,000 that we sold in Q4, I think I said we expect the first half of the year to be sort of around that type of level. Will it lead to some adverse mix? No, it won't. We mentioned we have an order bank of 200,000. 76% of those are Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Defender, those are the orders that we'll be fulfilling during that period, largely. In terms of commodity benefits, yes, we do expect, as I mentioned beforehand, some of the inflationary pressures at the suppliers to start to come down, commodity rates being part of that, utilities as well.
Whereas some of the inflationary impacts on our suppliers, particularly in terms of their labor costs, are going to be embedded and will probably continue to grow. There are some upsides and some downsides in terms of our supply costs, but we expect the rates that I showed you in terms of outbound inflation exceeding inbound inflation to continue.
Thanks, Richard. Question, Girish, your way, and also there's a question below that has the same thing. Discount pullback in Q4, was it driven by pre-buy or is it a new normal? Can you give a rough sense of how much discount have you pulled off?
I think the quantification of discount pullback, Balaji has already shown in his presentation. There was a clear reconciliation in the slide. Coming to this discount pullback, I mean, you know, I would rather like to say that it is about, you know, customer value perception. What we have been focusing on two, three things. One is continuously increasing the customer value. Second is taking a lot of efforts on communicating that value and ensuring that the customer experiences that value. It would be a mix of communication, whether it is ATL, influencer advocacy, or, you know, in-market trials. A lot of work has been done, and we have been consistently increasing that customer value, on which basis we are able to increase the market operating prices.
It is, I would say, a function of customer perceived value, and that too how does the customer compare it with the competitive offers, that he or she has. I think our focus has been to continuously improve that, and I can say that when we transitioned to BS VI phase II, we've been able to do a step change because that opportunity was available during product development.
Thank you. Thanks, Girish. The question on PV outlook seems to have changed significantly in the quarter. I think Girish has highlighted, already covered as to how he sees the industry scenario going forward. We stick to that. Clarification on PV, whether will Tata Motors incur battery CapEx? No. That will be done by a Tata Sons company. The company has already been set up under the name of Agratas Private Limited. That has already been created, so it will come through that company. I think, with this, we have come to the end of the session. I'd really like to thank you for taking the time and the probing questions that you've been asking us. Do feel free to reach out to our team in case you need further clarifications and specific details that you require.
Thank you, and look forward to speaking to you next quarter. Bye-bye. Thanks, guys.