Plug Mobility, Fortum C&D India partners to set up 3,200 EV charging stations in 79 cities
Carzonrent India's Electric Mobility as a Service (eMaaS) brand Plug Mobility has announced that it has partnered with Fortum Charge & Drive India Pvt. Ltd (Fortum C&D), to set up charging infrastructure for the latter's fleet of 19,000 cars.
Fortum C&D will set up 3,200 charging points in 79 cities and towns across India for the fleet that will be inaugurated over the next five years across India. The total investment for putting up the charging stations is about $50 million.
The charging infrastructure will be used for Carzonrent's recently launched EV fleet brand "Plug" and will also be available for the public.
Fortum C&D will set up and operate the charging points at its own cost and will install the charging stations gradually. The capacity of the deployed chargers will be over 100,000 KW. Fortum will follow an investment model where a lot of franchisees would also be involved while the company itself would invest in setting up a few charging stations.
Rajiv Kumar Vij, Managing Director, Carzonrent India said, "Carzonrent will provide a chauffeur-driven EV fleet through its initiative Plug for different ground mobility needs and our aim is on saving 4 lac (4,00,000 ton) tons of carbon dioxide emissions in the next five years by introducing 19000 EVs across India to service corporate business travel and employee transportation, guest and crew/staff movement requirement for Hospitality and Aviation sector, official travel requirement of Central and State Government and PSU entities, Airport Taxi services, and SME clients. The company's partnership with Fortum will bolster our efforts towards this."
Carzonrent is targeting a revenue of $ 350 million over the next five years on its EV initiative. Vij said that they would also support their fleet partners in getting vehicles on loan from banks.
Sanjay Aggarwal, president, Fortum India, said, "We are happy to cooperate with Carzonrent. We at Fortum have been continuously striving to make the benefits of electric mobility accessible to drivers every day for increased EV adoption, whether for private or commercial use. With government subsidies, affordability, and incentives provided to consumers, EV production and usage is picking up pace."
