Jio-BP opens country's largest EV charging hub in Delhi

A joint venture of billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and energy supermajor BP has opened one of the country's largest EV charging hubs in Delhi, as the duo scale up the fuel retail network, offering multiple fuel choices including EV charging infrastructure.

Reliance BP Mobility Limited, operating under the brand name Jio-bp, is working with multiple demand aggregators, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and technology partners with a vision of being the leading EV charging infrastructure player in India, RIL had said in its third quarter earnings announcement last week.

"Jio-bp has constructed and launched one of the country's largest EV charging hubs in Dwarka, Delhi with BluSmart as its primary customer," it had said.

RBML had launched its first Jio-bp branded Mobility Station at Navde, Navi Mumbai in October last year. And since then it has been scaling up the network.

Jio-bp is looking to set up a network of EV charging stations and battery swap stations, at its petrol pumps, which the firms refer to as 'Mobility Stations', and other standalone locations - Mobility Points. The joint venture aims to become a leading EV charging infrastructure player in India.

State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) is the largest fuel retailer with 33,546 petrol pumps. Privatisation-bound Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) has 19,668 outlets and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) has 19,602 petrol pumps.

"The existing network of over 1,400 fuel pumps will be rebranded as Jio-bp, presenting a new range of customer value propositions over the coming months," Reliance-bp had said in October last year when they launched the first Jio-bp outlet.

India's market for fuels and mobility is rapidly growing. It is expected to be the fastest-growing fuels market in the world over the next 20 years.

The joint venture plans to leverage Reliance's vast presence and deep experience in consumer businesses across India, with its hundreds of millions of customers in Jio and Reliance Retail, and bp's extensive global experience in high-quality differentiated fuels, lubricants, convenience and advanced low carbon mobility solutions.