Reliance BP Mobility Ltd. (RBML), operating under the Jio-bp brand, announced its association with Mahindra Group on Wednesday for the creation of EV products and services, alongside identifying synergies in low-carbon and conventional fuels.
The non-binding MoU agreed upon also covers evaluating EV charging solutions by Jio-bp for Mahindra electric vehicles including electric three and four-wheelers, quadricycles and electric small commercial vehicles. This would include captive fleets and last-mile mobility vehicles of Mahindra Group. With this association, Mahindra is aiming at a larger chunk in the Indian EV market.
“The partnership aims to leverage the strengths of both companies in the areas of EV products and services. Mahindra Group and its channel partner locations will be evaluated for setting up of Jio-bp Mobility Stations and EV charging and swapping points apart from utilising existing Jio-bp stations,” the firms said in a joint statement.
Mahindra has been mulling the idea to launch a wide range of battery-electric variants of its cars within the next few years, as it promised a few years back. The homegrown automaker is also mulling the idea to introduce a battery swapping service for its EVs that will reduce the downtime of the electric vehicles significantly and also help the automaker to explore a new business model by offering battery-as-a-service (BaaS) and mobility-as-a-service (MaaS).
The automaker expects electric vehicles to account for around 20 per cent of its total sales volumes in India by 2027. Its partnership with Jio-bp is expected to play a key role in that strategy. Jio-bp, earlier in October this year said that it had started offering services for charging and battery swapping for electric vehicles in India.
Electric vehicles make up only a fraction of India’s total auto sales in spite of the accelerating interest being received from consumers.
This is mainly due to high battery costs and the lack of charging infrastructure in the country. Introducing the BaaS and MaaS might address the concerns.