E-hailing giants Grab recently inked a strategic partnership with Chinese automaker GAC Motor (GAC) that will see the former adopt a sizeable EV fleet from the latter.E-hailing giants Grab revealed via press release earlier today that it has entered a strategic partnership with Chinese automaker GAC Motor (GAC). Through which, former is set to adopt a fleet of “high performance” electric vehicle (EVs) across Southeast Asia (ASEAN).
Key to this is of course the automaker’s Aion range of EVs – the Aion Y, Aion ES, and Aion V models, in particular. An initial fleet size totaling up to 20,000 units was touted, as is deployment across key country markets like Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, as well as Vietnam.
Across ASEAN, Grab is set to initially fleet up to 20,000 units of GAC Aion EVs. Key models noted include the Aion ES, Aion V and Aion Y.Concurrently, the partnership sees both Grab and GAC explore ways to enhance after-sales support for Grab’s fleets. This comes on top of a mutual aim to also both increase and integrate the number of EVs in the e-hailing giant’s fleets, with a focus on integrating both parties’ systems as well.
The latter entails to the integration of the Grab driver app into GAC’s intelligent cockpit system to enhance navigation and receive operational information – i.e. guidance to high-demand zones, safety alerts, and more. Effectively, said integration will eliminate the need to toggle between devices.
“By integrating the Grab driver app directly into the GAC cockpit display, our driver-partners can receive timely and important data, such as precise navigation and safety alerts, in a more ergonomic way,” said Philipp Kandal, Chief Product Officer at Grab.
Both firms are poised to leverage on each other's strengths to achieve their respect business goals across ASEAN using this partnership.Moreover, Grab driver-partners will soon have the choice to rent EVs from Grab’s fleet partners such as GAC, or opting for financing support through the firm’s ownership schemes.
For GAC, the automaker is poised to leverage with Grab’s reach across ASEAN in its bid to achieve exposure to millions of users, enabling it to gain greater brand awareness and a deeper market understanding of the region to more accurately meet its demands.