Clean Energy Provider 'Fortum' Collaborates With Clean Motion to Accelerate Electrification of Three-wheelers in India

NEW DELHI, May 29, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

- To jointly develop battery swap system for light electric vehicles 

- To complete the pilot during Q4 '18 

In order to boost the sales of electric vehicles in India, clean energy provider Fortum has signed an agreement with Clean Motion, on offering sustainable mobility solutions through jointly developing a battery swap system, tailored specially for light electric vehicles in India.

The goal is to jointly develop a battery swap system for light electric vehicles with the aim to launch a pilot before end of 2018 on an existing Zbee cluster in India before further development and expansion in India. The primary target market for the initiative are the major taxi companies in India, and other organizations with large fleets of vehicles that are in need of high uptime in their operations. The ultimate vision is to enable all manufacturers that make or intend to make light electric vehicles to receive an offer to use the swapping technology in their vehicles.  

Clean Energy Company Fortum wants to see the adoption of electric light vehicles to really take off in India. Commenting on the same, Mr. Sanjay Aggarwal, Managing Director, Fortum India, said, "Leveraging its expertise in e-mobility solutions, Fortum plans to transform mobility in India. The Indian Government has a vision to achieve fully electric mobility by 2030. Being a pioneer in providing charging solutions for electric vehicles in the Nordics, Fortum plans to extend their service and be a prominent enabler towards the achievement of this vision in India as well."

He further adds, "India is already an important market for Fortum, which has flourishing solar operations in the country. The collaboration of Fortum and Clean Motion is a step forward to achieve our Company's vision 'For a cleaner world'. Increased adoption of EV also means improved battery technology at affordable price and therefore, this collaboration agreement will further boost the market adoption of electric vehicles."

Mr. Awadhesh Kumar Jha, Vice President - Charge & Drive & Sustainability, Fortum India, said, "Fortum, being a Clean Energy Company, intends to provide green energy solutions to all variants of electric vehicles in India. He further adds that Fortum look at the batteries as containers of electric energy which is quite suitable for swapping in light electrical vehicles. This collaboration complements its pioneer Charge & Drive, which is built for billions, where EV is charged and driven whereas this project instead lets you change the energy canister and drive EV."

"Fortum's vision is to increase the market adoption of electric vehicles by offering suitable business model for the user of EV. This project will address the end customers' concern of high cost of owning EV by reducing the initial costs for batteries. Fortum will own the batteries and same shall be let out to EV in swapping stations on pay-per-use model," he further added.

The two companies believe that to create a large-scale transition there must be a cost-efficient alternative for the operators and drivers. High-quality batteries with sufficient capacity suffers high initial cost which is one of the major limitation for transition to electric vehicles.

"The company wants to increase the utilization of its vehicles, since this is in line with the overall corporate strategy of increased efficiency and use of resources. Hence, we believe that with a partner like Fortum, we can create a system that can really have a great impact on future businesses carried out with light electric vehicles. We believe that Zbee will be utilizing the energy and will be operating in a very cost-efficient way," said Göran Folkesson, CEO, Clean Motion AB.

About Fortum:
Fortum is a leading clean-energy company that provides its customers with electricity, heating and cooling as well as smart solutions to improve resource efficiency. We want to engage our customers and society to join the change for a cleaner world. We employ some 9,000 professionals in the Nordic and Baltic countries, Russia, Poland and India. In 2017, our sales were EUR 4.5 billion and 61% of our electricity generation was CO2 free. Fortum's share is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki. Please visit http://www.fortum.com

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