Grab & BYD Partner Up to Expand EV Fleet Across Southeast Asia

Grab has announced a regional partnership with BYD to expand its driver-partner EV fleet across Southeast Asia to 50,000 units.

Grab has announced a strategic partnership with Chinese automaker BYD to expand its EV fleet for driver-partners across the Southeast Asia region. This partnership will see BYD offering its EVs for Grab’s fleet partners and driver-partners “at the most competitive rates," plus exclusive extended warranty packages for the EV batteries.

According to Grab’s official statement, fleet partners and driver-partners across ASEAN will gain access to up to 50,000 BYD EVs through this partnership. Drivers will now have the option of renting these BYD EVs via Grab’s fleet partners programme, or alternatively they can opt for finance support through special car ownership schemes.

With this EV fleet expansion, Grab ride users in Singapore and Thailand can choose the ‘Eco-Friendly Ride’ option, where the app will prioritise allocation of eco-friendly vehicles at no additional cost. As of now, there’s no mention of the arrival of this function to our market, although the official statement did mention that this partnership spans all key ASEAN markets for Grab—Malaysia included.

To achieve this, both companies will collaborate on “deep IoT integration” between the BYD EVs and Grab’s own platform and services. This means that we can expect BYD EV Grab drivers to utilise the car’s large infotainment screens for their operations instead of using their personal mobile devices, while sensor and telemetry data from the EV will be transferred directly to Grab’s algorithm.

Ultimately, both companies are looking forward to leveraging Grab’s local map data and services to facilitate smoother and more efficient trips for BYD EV drivers. This partnership could also enable Grab to collect valuable road and traffic data from its BYD EV fleets, where it can be used to improve its mapping services in the future.

Both the BYD M6 (left) and Denza D9 (right) EV MPVs will be among the BYD EVs used on this fleet partnership programme.

As for the EVs involved in this partnership, we can expect to see some key BYD models like the Atto 3, Seal, and the M6 MPV offered in this partnership programme. At the same time, Grab has also expressed interest in using BYD’s Denza premium sub-brand for its GrabExec premium ride fleet, so we can expect to see things like the Denza D9 EV MPV enlisted for this application.