Ather Energy signs strategic partnership with BLive
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India’s first multi-EV retail platform, BLive, and India’s first intelligent electric scooter manufacturer Ather Energy announced a strategic partnership to drive EV adoption by offering the Ather experience to customers and helping build charging infrastructure across popular tourist destinations in the country, starting with Goa. In this first-of-its-kind partnership, Ather Energy and BLive aim to build an ecosystem that provides easily accessible EV experience and charging infrastructure across the country, leveraging the latter's pan-India presence at India’s top tourist destinations.
BLive will set up five charging stations for Ather Energy across Goa by the end of August, named 'BLive EV Zones'. It further plans to strengthen its presence by setting up 15 charging stations across the state by the end of the year, at prominent places. BLive will also offer a first-hand Ather Energy E-Scooter experience and help customers with pre-booking and booking of the same through its BLive EV Store, the multi-brand online EV Store.
Ravneet S. Phokela, Chief Business Officer, Ather Energy, said, “The electric vehicle market in India is amidst massive transformation and we have seen an exponential increase in demand for our electric scooters. We aim to leverage BLive’s strong presence, in Goa and other popular tourist destinations across India, in deploying Ather Grid and bringing the Ather experience to EV enthusiasts. Further, we hope to work very closely with BLive's range of partners, from Goa Tourism to the hospitality industry, in boosting consumer confidence in shifting to e-vehicles.”
BLive is the official EV Tourism partner of Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC). Continuing their support towards sustainable tourism and EV adoption in Goa, 'BLive EV zones' will be set up across its associated hotels.
Dayanand Sopte, Chairman, GTDC said, “Goa is among the most popular tourist destinations in India and we want Goa to set an example for sustainable tourism. GTDC supports all the efforts to make sustainable tourism and EV adoption in Goa. We want to create an environment where companies like Ather Energy and BLive can drive innovative change and lead us into the future. We aim to collaboratively encourage cleaner and sustainable ways to travel. We look forward to welcoming many such smart technologies.”
India's nascent electric vehicle market is navigating through a lack of infrastructure and ample opportunities. Through this strategic partnership, Ather Energy and BLive aim to fulfil India's potential to be a leader in the EV market.
Samarth Kholkar & Sandeep Mukherjee, Co-founders BLive, said, “We are happy to take another giant leap forward in driving the EV experience and adoption with Ather Energy across India, starting with Goa. Our partnership will help us offer premium hand-crafted experience on Ather’s e-scooter. Having Ather Energy on our EV experience platform further elevates our mission to drive EV adoption in India. We have already seen multiple pre bookings for Ather, in a few days of launch. This will only go higher and so will adoption to electric mobility.”
BLive will leverage its existing partnerships with public and private players in the travel and hospitality industry to drive the Ather Grid roll-out across locations in India. BLive is currently present in 9 states across 15 locations.
Founded in 2018 by Samarth Kholkar and Sandeep Mukherjee, BLive, India’s first EV experience platform offers unique, experiential, guided tours on electric bikes and has launched India’s first online EV marketplace offering top brands of E-Cycles and E-Scooters. BLive EV Tours has completed over 15,000 eBike tours so far, across the 15 locations it is present in. The EV Store has successfully delivered to customers in over 50 Cities in a few months of the online store launch.