This is why Reliance cancelled plans to produce Lithium-ion batteries in India, says Entrepreneur Vikas Vij

Entrepreneur Vikas Vij’s blunt assessment of why Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) abandoned its plans to manufacture lithium-ion batteries in India has reignited an uncomfortable but necessary debate about the country’s technological ambitions.

At the heart of the issue lies a stark contrast between India’s largest conglomerate versus a relatively unknown Chinese battery startup.

Chinese startup wins while Reliance drops plan?

Hithium, a private Chinese lithium battery company founded in 2019, is roughly 1/200th the size of Reliance. Yet this “tiny” firm reportedly refused to license its battery technology to India’s most powerful corporate group.

The reason is not arrogance or geopolitics, Vij argues, but capability. 

Hithium possesses something Reliance does not - deep, hard-earned intellectual property built through relentless investment in research and development.

Reliance earns nearly $10 billion in annual net profits and has publicly committed to transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy.

But according to Vij, the ambition stops where real technological risk begins.

“Reliance (RIL) earns nearly $10 billion in annual net profits as a group,” Vij argued. “But due to a protectionist domestic market, it has no culture of investing in innovation and no motivation to compete globally.”

Decades of operating in a protected domestic market have left Indian conglomerates with little incentive to invest in innovation or compete globally.

As a result, RIL lacks patents, proprietary cell designs, process know-how, and the manufacturing expertise needed to build next-generation lithium-ion cells in-house.

Battery technology is not a plug-and-play business.

Companies like Hithium spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on R&D, building pilot plants, running safety labs, hiring elite scientists and engineers, and enduring years of failed experiments before achieving reliable, high-yield production.

These capabilities cannot be reverse-engineered quickly or licensed cheaply.

They are the product of patience, capital, and a culture that accepts failure as the price of progress.

India, unfortunately, lacks the broader ecosystem to support such efforts.

According to the entrepreneur, there is no deeply integrated supply chain spanning critical mineral mining, chemical precursor production, advanced equipment manufacturing, and large-scale testing infrastructure.

Nor is there a sufficiently large talent pool of battery scientists, process engineers, and automation specialists. This gap is the cumulative result of decades of industrial R&D neglect and policy missteps.

Vij’s critique goes beyond Reliance. It is an indictment of an economic model that celebrates financial market success over technological achievement.

Until India commits long-horizon capital to R&D, builds a culture that rewards innovation and risk-taking, and prioritises global competitiveness over domestic dominance, it will remain dependent on foreign technology, even in industries critical to its energy future.

The cancellation of Reliance’s battery plans is not just a corporate decision, but a mirror held up to India’s innovation deficit and a warning of what lies ahead if it goes unaddressed.

Why Reliance Cancelled Plans to Produce Lithium-Ion Battery in India

1. Hithium is a tiny Chinese battery maker (1/200th in size of RIL)

2. This tiny firm refused to license its tech to India's most powerful group.

India’s Critical Import Dependence for Strategic Technologies:…

— Vikas Vij (@TheClubJunto) January 12, 2026

Also read: Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries commits Rs 7 Lakh crore to clean energy and data centres in Gujarat (startuppedia.in)