China’s SAIC Motor-owned British marquee brand MG Motor India, and Fortum Charge & Drive India, part of the Finland-headquartered clean-energy company have announced that they will set up 50 DC fast-charging stations, which they say is part of their commitment to drive sustainable mobility in the country. This comes ahead of MG Motor’s to debut the EZS electric SUV later this year.

Under the partnership, initially Fortum will install 50 KW CCS/CHAdeMO DC fast public charging stations for EVs across MG’s showrooms in five cities including Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bangalore and Ahmedabad by September this year. One such charging station will come up at MG’s flagship showroom in Gurgaon. The chargers can be accessed by an EV user, having cars compatible with CCS/CHAdeMO charging standards by registering with Fortum Charge & Drive India through its mobile app.

Speaking on the partnership, Rajeev Chaba, president and MD, MG Motor India, said, “The upcoming launch of MG eZs is aligned with the government’s long-term objective to have more electric vehicles on the road in the next few years. We are delighted to be partnering with one of the leading EV charging service provider in the global EV space to set up charging stations at MG dealerships in select cities to begin with. This is in line with our goal to provide accessible EVs to India customers and create an EV ecosystem in India.”

Sanjay Aggarwal, managing director, Fortum India, said, “We are happy to collaborate with one of the world’s leading automotive companies to bolster the adoption of EV which has been greatly promoted by the government by bringing out various enabling policy measures and guidelines. We have already witnessed an uptake in adoption of electric vehicles in the last one year. This collaboration will further bolster this growth. As one of the key players, we are constantly evaluating the Indian market for charging infrastructure and will continue to give a pleasant charging experience to EV user.”

The MG EZS compact SUV comes with a full-sized boot and room for five. MG Motor says the electric SUV is part of its India’s strategy, which is to provide environment-friendly mobility solutions in the long-term and to make EVs accessible for customers across the country.

Incidentally, Fortum has been eyeing a bigger role in the EV charging space in India for last two years. In 2017, the company had signed a MoU with NBCC (India), a Navratna government of India enterprise under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, for developing charging infrastructure across India in all upcoming NBCC construction projects.

In 2018, Fortum signed an agreement with Sweden-based Clean Motion for joint development of battery swapping stations in India for light electric vehicles. The project was aimed to be launched by end-2018 on existing Zbee cluster in India.

Now with the company tying up with MG Motor India, it could finally see a new charge for becoming a leading player in EV charging solution.