[ad_1]
New Delhi: Amazon India has announced a partnership with New Delhi-based battery swapping infrastructure provider Sun Mobility, to electrify its delivery fleet in India. Through this, Amazon India will seek to deploy commercial electric vehicles (EVs) in its fleet that are compatible with Sun’s battery swapping network. Eventually, the company seeks to adopt 10,000 EVs within its fleet of delivery vehicles across India.
Sun Mobility is presently setting up battery swapping stations at Amazon India warehouses in cities such as Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and others. The two companies have also completed a pilot project, which involved operating 100 cargo EVs across the e-commerce company’s India delivery network.
Chetan Maini, co-founder of Sun Mobility said that the deployment will enable the company to make refuelling electric vehicles “faster, cheaper and more convenient” for fleet operators.
In October 2021, Sun Mobility had raised $50 million to expand its battery swapping network. Back then, the company had set a target of setting up 500 swapping points by the end of 2022. It reportedly had about 65 battery swapping stations across 15 cities in India, as of then.
Companies across the Indian e-commerce sector have set targets to electrify their commercial operation or delivery fleets in the country. In February 2021, Indian e-commerce company Flipkart had announced its target to deploy approximately 25,000 EVs across its delivery and supply chain to electrify its entire on-ground operations. To do this, Flipkart had partnered with the likes of Hero Electric, Mahindra Electric and Piaggio, the company had said at the time.
Sun Mobility had also been roped in by the likes of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Uber and Ashok Leyland, among others. In November 2021, the company was among partners such as Tech Mahindra and Ola Electric that were selected by IOC to set-up 10,000 EV charging facilities at fuel stations. In 2019, the company had announced an initiative with Uber to help set-up three wheeler EVs in the country.
According to a March 2022 report by market research firm Global Market Insights, the global battery swapping operation industry is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 20% – to be valued at over $400 million (over ₹3,000 crore) by 2028.
Indian battery swapping operators such as VoltUp, Lithion Power and Sun Mobility were all named as companies that could play key roles in this journey.
Download
the App to get 14 days of unlimited access to Mint Premium absolutely free!
[ad_2]
Source link