Energy company bp has launched a trial EV subscription service designed to help ride hail drivers in London transition to electric vehicles.
The bp EV Pro package offers an all-in-one subscription product which includes a new private hire licensed electric vehicle, unlimited charging, insurance and roadside assistance.
Deepshikha Vasishta, global fleet director, bp said “Fleets of electric taxis will be key in the future, but our research has shown that the upfront cost and the complexity of leasing, insuring, charging and keeping an unfamiliar vehicle on the road is preventing drivers from making the switch.”
The new subscription service is designed to overcome these blockers and is supported by mobility software and business model provider Tomorrow’s Journey. Specifically, its JRNY smart mobility platform simplifies and speeds up the driver onboarding process by integrating with third parties allowing validation checks, which have previously been done manually and often taking days, to be completed in under 10 minutes.
Tomorrow’s Journey CEO Chris Kirby said, “The key to delivering the ambitious service levels the bp team required was simplifying the process and keeping the number of interactions with the driver to a minimum. A highly automated back-office system is just as important as a slick front end user journey.”
Furthermore, adds Kirby, shared neutral fleets across multiple rental-based mobility products are the only answer to the rapidly changing automotive finance market. And in the case of EV Pro it was the combination of the bp brand and Tomorrow’s Journey’s technical expertise and agile approach that was key to bringing the project to market quickly. bp plans to roll out and trial its cars-as-a-service product to ride hail drivers in London.
