Two months ago, Anand Mahindra , chairman of M&M and India's maverick entrepreneur who is constantly testing boundaries, goaded Elon Musk on Twitter. Musk, the legendary founder of electric-vehicle maker Tesla Motors, tweeted about India's resolve to have only electric cars by 2030.Mahindra tweeted, "Time you got out here Elon. You don’t want to leave the whole market to Mahindra, do you? The more the merrier — and greener.” Musk tweeted back, "Good point :-)"Why would Mahindra, the sole electric-car manufacturer in the country, would want a rival, as big as Tesla? Mahindra thinks he can be an electric vehicle (EV) leader without having to copy Tesla. Probably, he is so sure of himself that he knows he would retain the edge of being the first mover in India by sticking to his own game.That's what he said yesterday in his address to the shareholders: "Tesla was the pioneer, so Mahindra should develop its separate niche. There is no point in copying anybody. You have to differentiate yourself. We are spending significant amount of money on electric. We are ahead of the game," said Mahindra"The company would rather create a differentiated offering than following Tesla. Mahindra has a strategy both for ride sharing in fleet business right up to premium vehicles," he said.The maker of e2o and e-verito electric cars made waves when its Mahindra Racing finished 3rd in the recently concluded Formula E Racing competition ahead of global brands like Jaguar just behind Renault and Audi."We were third out of 10 constructors, after Renault and Audi. We are getting enormous technology feedback from there, Formula Electric is our laboratory in that sense, that is part of the reason we will succeed in the high end of electric vehicles," Mahindra said.M&M is building an all-electric luxury car being designed by Pininfarina with a new 360-600V power train.But its real action is faraway from this glitzy world. The Indian government's 13-year deadline to turn all-electric is charging up Mahindra Electric. Today, it is nowhere near that dreamy aim. In 2016, it had the capacity to make 2,000 electric cars, which will go up to 5,000 this year.But the Mahindra has ambitious plans to ramp up capacity. It announced the setting up of a new facility to make battery packs to power e-vehicles. Once completed, the plant at Chakan in Pune will help boost the company's production of battery packs ten times from now.Production of electric vehicles, in essence, depends on the availability of batteries. While M&M imports battery cells, it assembles the packs in India at a facility in Bengaluru that can do 400-500 units per month.While it is planning to increase production at the Bengaluru plant to 1,000 a month, the new Chakan facility will have a capacity of 60,000 units a year, or 5,000 a month. The battery packs will be supplied to Mahindra's factories in Nashik and Chakan that manufacture electric cars.Mahindra has so far invested Rs 600 crore in the development and sale of e-vehicles and has recently committed an additional Rs 600 crore.Mahindra also working on new technologies that will enable it to produce high-powered vehicles with a maximum speed limit of 200 km an hour and a range of 350-400 km on a single charge. It plans to launch products with the new technology in the second half of 2019 in a bid to lead the electric mobility revolution in India.India is the world's fifth-largest car market today and is expected to climb two notches by 2020. That's why Mahindra is so charged up about EVs. He isn't afraid of Tesla or other companies such as Volvo coming to India with their EVs. He is the first mover and now making all efforts to be ready for the India's EV revolution.Mahindra's plans for differentiated offerings will give it a hold over Indian market. Entry of Tesla will only improve Mahindra's prospects as that will mean more awareness among people about EVs resulting in more demand at all levels.