Sharge Management Co, a provider of charging systems for battery-powered vehicles, will forge partnerships with commercial fleet operators, including public transport service providers, in a push for exponential growth of its electric vehicle (EV) business.
The company is teaming up with 4-5 fleet operators, said Peerapatr Sirichantaropart, managing director of Sharge, declining to name them but revealing that an express boat operator on the Chao Phraya River is among them.
These operators have almost 6,000 vehicles in total.
The new partnerships form part of Sharge's long-term business development plan which is aimed at having earnings from the transport sector make up half of total revenue within 2025.
Mr Peerapatr said the company set a target to rake in 3 billion baht in revenue in 2025.
Sharge plans to increase the number of new business partners to 50 from 27 firms in 2025, the same year the number of EVs on the road is set to increase to 1.05 million units, up from 40,000 units at present, under the government's EV target.
The company wants to partner with businesses from various fields, ranging from energy and automotive to property and shopping malls, in order to build EV charging facilities.
Among its partners are Bangchak Corporation Plc, Sansiri, Porsche and Central Group.
In 2022, Sharge plans to expand its EV charging business to housing and condominium projects whose construction was completed, but lack EV charging infrastructure, said Mr Peerapatr.
At present, there are only 6,000 charging outlets to serve 40,000 EVs. If the government increases the number of EVs to 300,000, the number of charging outlets must increase to 100,000 nationwide.
According to Sharge, up to 7 million EVs were sold in the global market last year and the numbers are expected to increase rapidly within a few years.
"Battery-run vehicles in the Thai market are expected to enjoy stronger sales next year. They will become mainstream vehicles in the future," said Mr Peerapatr.