M&M, Jio-BP tie up for EV services – EQ Mag Pro
MUMBAI: Mahindra Group and Jio-BP, a joint venture between Reliance Industries and BP, have teamed up to explore creation of electric vehicle (EV) products and services. The alliance will also explore low-carbon solutions.
Mahindra Group and its channel partners’ locations will be evaluated for setting up Jio-BP stations, including EV charging and swapping points. Additionally, business models like Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) and Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) will be explored wherein Jio-BP could provide charging solutions to EVs made by Mahindra Group. Jio-BP recently launched its first station in Maharashtra, offering multiple fuelling choices, including EV-charging infrastructure.
India’s EV market, though nascent, is red hot right now. With companies like Ola, Greaves and most recently Simple Energy setting up large e-two-wheeler plants (Ola and Simple are both million-plus factories), the supply side is ramping up fast. It’s the charging infrastructure though that’s going to be a game changer.
According to a Grant Thornton Charat-Ficci report released earlier this year, the estimate was that India would need 400,000 charging stations by 2026 to accommodate 2 million EVs. According to the Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles, there were around 1,800 charging stations as of March this year for just over 16,000 electric four-wheelers.
Because the demand is so high, the activity is beginning to get frenetic too at the charging end. Tata Power and its leverage with Tata Motors’s EV business has been one of the reasons for the success of the latter’s EV strategy. In the two-wheeler space, Tata Power has also partnered with TVS for charging network.
Ashok Leyland has signed an MoU with ABB Power Grids to set up fast-charging infrastructure for electric buses. Traditional oil companies are already ramping up their EV-charging network riding on their petrol/diesel channels.
Indian Oil, which currently has 448 charging stations, plans to ramp up to 2,000 in a year and add another 8,000 in a further 2 years. In the two-wheeler space, vehicle manufacturers are setting up their own network, taking a leaf out of the dealer-channel build that ICE OEMs do. Ola, for instance, is investing heavily in its hyper charger network and has announced it will have 100,000 charging points across 400 cities. Rival Hero Electric has announced it will set up 10,000 charging stations by 2022.
Source: TNN
