SINGAPORE - Ride-hailing firm Grab will bring in 200 new electric vehicles from next year, as part of a partnership with energy utilities provider SP Group.
Grab announced on Thursday (Aug 23) that the new vehicles - which will hit the roads progressively from early next year - will be available through its rental arm GrabRentals.
Under the partnership, Grab's private-hire car drivers will enjoy preferential rates at SP Group's electric vehicle charging stations and discounted parking for drivers using the charging stations.
The energy utilities provider announced plans in June to introduce a network of 500 fast-charging stations by 2020, with the first 30 to be set up by the end of this year.
These will be placed at areas such as housing estates, shopping malls, industrial sites and business parks.
The Singapore-based ride-hailing firm said it would work with SP Group to study usage patterns of its electric vehicles to improve the accessibility and utilisation of charging stations.
Grab said more details regarding the cost of charging, as well as the electric vehicle models to be used, will be made known by the end of this year.
The firm noted however that the model will have a range of 400km per charge, which allows for a full day of driving on 40 minutes of charging.
Mr Goh Chee Kiong, SP Group's strategic development head, said the partnership with Grab will help "accelerate the wider adoption of EVs (electric vehicles) in Singapore and support the nation's efforts to reduce our carbon footprint".
"With SP joining our consortium of EV partners, Grab is in a unique position to help drive a cleaner, greener Singapore by encouraging more of our drivers to adopt EVs," said Grab Singapore head Lim Kell Jay.
While fully electric cars are already available through Grab, their numbers are not known.
Green vehicles have taken off recently, with the number of electric and plug-in hybrid cars at 647 as of last month (July), up from 137 two years ago.
In February, electricity retailer Red Dot Power announced a partnership with Finnish charging technology firm PlugIT to install at least 50 charging stations by the end of next year.
Electric car-sharing operator BlueSG aims to build 2,000 charging points by 2020, and make 400 of them available to the public.
Taxi giant ComfortDelGro introduced two fully electric Hyundai Ioniq cabs to its fleet last month as part of a one-year trial, while HDT Singapore Taxi will expand its fully electric fleet from 100 currently to 800 by July 2022.
