Gulf Oil lays ground work for EV charge

The company's acquisition of a stake in a software start up is aimed at putting in the building blocks for a significant play in the EV segment including grid management. Shahkar Abidi has the details.

-  Shahkar Abidi

Gulf Oil Lubricants India, part of the Hinduja Group, is working on a plan to enter the e-mobility value chain. The Mumbai-based company which gets counted amongst the top lubricant players in India recently announced that it is making a 26 percent acquisition, valued at around Rs 14.5 crore in Delhi-based Techperspect Software, a startup also known as ElectreeFi.

The startup which is largely a provider of software-as-aservice (SaaS) to electric vehicle companies and offers IoT based e-mobility solutions including charger management software solutions, battery swapping management system, EV fleet management system and software to support charging and grid load management.

Ravi Chawla, the company's MD & CEO said the alliance with ElectreeFi has been designed to leverage its around 100,000 pan-India touchpoints as well as relationships with automotive OEMs and industrial customers to provide an entire spectrum of solutions to the B2B as well as B2C customers. The company will also leverage synergies with other Hinduja Group companies such as UK-based Switch Mobility, Ashok Leyland and OHM Global Mobility in India as well as in global markets, he said.

The acquisition of a stake in ElectreeFi is Gulf Oil's second foray into the green mobility eco-system.