Ride-hailing platform Uber on Wednesday has announced to enter electric segment with multiple vendors, to compete with new players such as BluSmart, from next month.
Called Uber Green, the company will begin with Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, starting June that will allow passengers to request an all-electric cab for their journey.
It plans to add 25,000 electric cars over the next three years and 10,000 electric two-wheelers by 2024. The company will be rolling out 1,000 cars to start with, in phases and 1,000 electric bikes in these three cities.
Expanding partnership
It has expanded its partnership with EV fleet partners Lithium Urban Technologies, Everest Fleet and Moove and it has also teamed up with Zypp Electric for 10,000 EV two-wheelers in Delhi by 2024.
Uber has also announced a partnership with SIDBI to unlock ₹1,000 crore in EV financing going forward.
“It’s (India) is our third largest market in the world in terms of volumes. It has got one of the largest footprints in the world with two centres in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. It’s an area we are innovating a lot,” Andrew Macdonald, Senior Vice President, Mobility and Business Operations at Uber, said.
He said the company was determined to become allies of cities and governments as they seek to combat climate change and pollution through sustainable mobility.
“India’s huge scale and electrification momentum makes the country a priority for Uber as we seek to meet our commitment to electrify every ride on our platform by 2040,” he said.
He added that India is more a critical market for Uber because it has around eight-lakh active partners already on the platform and growing quickly.
Global partnership
The company said it is also bringing its global partnership with BP to India through Jio-bp and has also tied up with GMR Green Energy for fast charging Uber EVs.
When asked about on-boarding women drivers to Uber Green platform, Prabhjeet Singh, President, Uber India and South Asia said, “We do create incredible opportunities for women drivers to join the platform. We also believe that electric vehicles will reduce the barriers for more women to join the platform because the challenge of asset permission and the effort required to purchase a vehicle goes down...so we will be able to attract women drivers.”
It’s competitor BluSmart which is only present in electric vehicles segment has 3,500 cars right now in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru and has more than 50 female driver partners.
“We have also partnered with Delhi government and trained 1,000 women drivers,” the company said in a statement.
BluSmart has also 2,600 charging hubs across these cities, the largest being in South Delhi with a capacity to charge 400 cars at a time.