New Delhi, Oct 20 As e-mobility aims to take big steps in India, electric vehicles solutions firm SUN Mobility on Wednesday announced it has raised $50 million by Vitol, one of the world's largest independent traders of energy and a significant investor in zero-emission technology.
With this new funding, SUN Mobility plans to expand its footprint to major cities both by increasing the number of swap points, partnering with various OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), collaborating with various fleet operators and distributors to introduce newer business models, and adding more vehicles to its ever-expanding mobility-as-a-service (MaaS) offering.
"Vitol will bolster our vision of onboarding 1 million EVs on SUN Mobility's platform by 2025 and help take make-in-India EV technology solutions to other emerging countries," Uday Khemka, Co-Founder and Vice Chairman, said in a statement.
The company aims to set up 500 swap points in India by the end of 2022 and plans to roll out new products to enhance the swap experience and to further strengthen and expand its leadership in battery swapping across the country.
"With over 160 million two and three-wheeler vehicles in India, SUN Mobility's model has significant potential. Electrifying the largest portion of India's vehicle fleet through a flexible and cost-effective offering has the potential to reduce urban pollution," added R Andrew de Pass, Head of Renewables, Vitol.
SUN Mobility currently has a network of 50 battery-swapping stations spread across 14 cities, with plans to ramp it up to 150 stations in 20 cities by March 2021.
It has already partnered with Indian Oil Company to deploy battery swap modules at their gas stations.
According to an independent study by the CEEW Centre for Energy Finance (CEEW-CEF), the EV market in India will be a $206 billion opportunity by 2030 if India maintains steady progress to meet its ambitious 2030 target. This would require a cumulative investment of over $180 billion in vehicle production and charging infrastructure.
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