EV component enquiries: how to qualify before you invest in tooling

An electric three-wheeler start-up has sent a battery tray drawing and an annual volume that would fill your press shop. Your toolroom is already sketching a progressive die. Stop before the steel is ordered. Qualify the enquiry on four points first: where the volume figure comes from, whether the design is frozen, who pays for the tool and when, and what happens to the tool if the launch moves. Quote the prototype work readily. Cut a hard tool only for a buyer who can answer all four.

Why EV enquiries run ahead of themselves

Many of these buyers are young companies building their first vehicle. The volume in the RFQ is their business plan, and sometimes the number shown to investors. A battery tray follows the cells, so the tray changes whenever the cell supplier does. Launch dates move with funding and with the testing and approvals the vehicle still has to pass. None of this is bad faith. It just means the risk sits with whoever cuts the tool.

Sorting a prototype enquiry from a production one is covered in prototype order or production order. This post starts where that one stops: the buyer has asked for a production tool, and you have to decide whether to cut it.

Four questions before any hard tool

Ask them on the first call, in this order, and write down the answers word for word.

1. Where does the volume figure come from? Workable: dealer bookings, a fleet operator's order, a contract with a delivery company. Worrying: "our plan for the first year", or a figure that matches the pitch deck to the last unit.

2. Is the design frozen, and who signs a change? Workable: a released drawing with a revision letter, a named design owner, a freeze date already passed. Worrying: "only minor changes now", while the cell or motor supplier is still being chosen.

3. Who pays for the tool, and when? Workable: tooling on its own purchase order, paid in stages, with an advance before steel is bought. Worrying: "build it into the piece price" from a buyer with no running order. A letter of intent counts only if it says what the buyer pays when the programme stops.

4. What happens to the tool and the stock if the launch moves? Workable: a written clause covering tool cost spent to date and material bought against schedules. Worrying: silence, or "that will not happen".

Alongside the four, check that the company is what it says it is. Look at its registered details, visit its assembly site if it has one, and ask one of its existing vendors how payments have gone.

Three ways to quote, depending on the answers

All four workable. Send a full development quote, with the tool on its own lines and payable in stages. The layout is in quoting for a development part.

The buyer is real and pays, but the volume or the design is not settled. Quote a bridge route. Laser-cut, bent and welded parts, or a soft tool, carry the pilot lots at a higher piece price. Price the hard tool as a separate option that starts only on a written freeze date and an advance.

Two or more worrying answers. Quote prototypes and pilot lots only, paid before dispatch. Keep in touch, because a buyer who is early today may be ready after the next round of testing.

One exception changes the rule. If the part needs a machine you do not own, the decision is no longer about this enquiry but about whether to enter EV parts at all.

Imagine a fabricator in Dewas

Imagine a sheet metal fabricator in Dewas, near Indore, that makes cabin panels for tractor and bus body builders. The details are illustrative. An electric cargo three-wheeler start-up sent a battery tray drawing with a large annual figure. Keen to win its first EV customer, the fabricator started a progressive die on its own money, on a phone call and an email saying the order would follow.

Then the start-up changed its cell supplier. The tray grew, the launch slipped, and the die was corrected once before it became useless. Several weeks of the toolroom's time and the steel were lost, and no order came for the first design.

When an e-rickshaw maker in Indore later asked for a battery box, the owner asked the four questions on the first call. The volume came from dealer bookings, which was workable. The design was due to change with a new cell, which was not. So the owner quoted the bridge route: fabricated boxes for the pilot lots at a higher piece price, and the hard tool as a separate line. It carried an advance and a start date tied to the freeze date in the purchase order. The design did change. The hard tool was then quoted against the frozen drawing, with the buyer's money in it from the start. The pilot lots cost the buyer more per piece, and the e-rickshaw maker pushed back on that for a fortnight before agreeing.

Testing, safety and what not to claim

Battery enclosures, busbars and charger housings carry safety and testing requirements. Which ones apply depends on the part and the vehicle. The buyer, the testing agencies and government rules set them, and those rules differ by body and change, so check with your own adviser or the regulator before you describe any part as compliant.

What you can offer is your share of the evidence: material certificates, dimensional reports, weld and coating records, and the process you used. Say plainly which tests the buyer must arrange. A fabricator who claims a test it never ran loses the account at the first audit.

Ask the four questions on your next EV call

Print the four questions and keep them beside the phone. On the next EV enquiry, write down the answers before anyone opens a tool design. If two come back worrying, quote prototypes and stop there for now. Sorting enquiries this way is lead qualification, and how EV parts fit among the wider trade is on the automotive component makers page. If you want your EV enquiries sorted with you, tell us what you need.