20 EV Supply Chain Interview Questions for Procurement and Operations Roles

Cell sourcing, magnet contracts, supplier audits, FAME-3 compliance + cost-down playbooks — the 20 questions asked in EV supply-chain interviews at Indian OEMs.

Supply chain interviews at Indian EV OEMs test breadth across commodity-specific knowledge, supplier-management discipline, regulatory literacy + the cost-down reasoning that drives margin. Here are 20 questions that recur and the patterns that win them.

Commodity-specific knowledge

Walk through the cell-cost decomposition for a 50kWh NMC pack. What's the cathode contribution?
How does LFP cell sourcing differ from NMC sourcing? Suppliers + geographies + pricing.
Walk through the NdFeB magnet supply chain — sources, dysprosium dependency, geopolitical risk.
What's the current copper price + how does it impact e-motor BOM?
Walk through the cathode-precursor value chain from Indonesian nickel to a finished pCAM.

Supplier management

Walk through your PPAP submission review process for a new battery-pack supplier.
How do you handle a single-source supplier that misses delivery commitments?
What's your strategy for dual-sourcing a critical component without doubling the qualification spend?
Walk through the supplier-rating system you'd implement for an EV programme.
How do you onboard a new Tier-2 supplier into an existing IATF 16949 quality system?

Regulatory + policy

Walk through the FAME-2 localisation requirements + how they impact sourcing decisions.
What's the impact of the PLI scheme on Indian cell + magnet sourcing strategy?
Walk through the BIS battery-cell standard + what it means for import vs domestic sourcing.
How does the LMM (Lakh per Tonne Magnet) policy proposal change Indian magnet sourcing?

Cost-down + commercial

Walk through your should-cost model for a 5kWh e-2W battery pack.
How do you structure a 5-year cell-offtake contract to share commodity-price risk?
What's your negotiation lever-set for the third year of an established supplier relationship?
Walk through the make-vs-buy decision for HV cable harnesses.

Behavioural

Tell me about a supplier crisis you managed. What did you do?
Describe a should-cost analysis that led to a real commercial outcome.
How do you balance cost-down pressure against supplier-relationship health?

Where to go from here

Supply chain interviews favour commodity-specific fluency + named-supplier knowledge + lived experience over generic procurement frameworks. Prepare 3-4 commodity decompositions out loud, name specific suppliers + their geographies, and the senior-band offers convert.

Make this real: create a free emobility.careers account to match with EV jobs, see live salary medians and unlock 200+ JD templates. Want hands-on training? Check out the AICTE-approved EV programs at DIYguru — the largest EV academy in India with placement support across OEMs, charging operators and Tier-1 suppliers.