15:57     22 June 2021    

BP invested $7million in smart electric vehicle (EV) charging firm, IoTecha, leading a $13.2 million investment round, the company said in a statement Tuesday.

BP invested $7million in smart electric vehicle (EV) charging firm, IoTecha, leading a $13.2 million investment round, the company said in a statement Tuesday, Baku Tribune reports citing Anadolu. IoTecha’s easy-to-use technology connects EV chargers with the electricity grid using the Internet of Things (IoT). The technology optimizes the charging process by automating payments and delivering cost and potential energy savings to customers, BP said. The company said the investment in IoTecha is aligned with the company’s aim to provide over 70,000 public EV charging points worldwide by 2030. "IoTecha is at the forefront of the trend towards electrification, and their unique technology combines EV charging with smart connectivity to deliver cost and energy savings," Richard Bartlett, senior vice president of BP’s future mobility & solutions, was quoted as saying in the statement. With the global EV infrastructure market set to exceed 55 million chargers in buildings by 2030, BP said charging infrastructure needs to adapt to handle new hardware and increased power demand. The technology enables EV owners to sell unused electricity back to the grid through a process known as Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) or bi-directional charging. "The transportation and electrification industries have developed for the last hundred years without substantial interactions with each other," said Oleg Logvinov, president and CEO of IoTecha.