Uber Eyes EV Fleet Of 3,000 By 2021, Plans Partnership With OEMs

Uber India is looking to add around 3K electric vehicles and erickshaws to its fleet by the end of 2021. This is in line with the Indian unit of the US-based ride-hailing company’s plans to adopt green technologies.

For this, Uber India is planning to form strategic partnerships with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), EV infrastructure firms for charging and battery swapping, and fleets and financiers to make green-powered automobiles both ‘accessible and affordable’. 

“As of now, we plan to have approximately 3K EVs and erickshaws (across two, three and four-wheelers) on our platform by the end of 2021,” Prabhjeet Singh, president, mobility, Uber India and South Asia, told Mint.

In November, Uber added 100 erickshaws in Delhi and 500 in Kolkata and it is also said to be eyeing the Tier-II cities and has plans to reach 200 cities by December-end.

“EV-friendly policies and targets by the Centre and states such as Delhi and Telangana will translate into sales in the near future,” the company said.

“In Mumbai, for example, gross bookings for auto have bounced back to over 150% of pre-Covid levels. In Chandigarh, it’s at 100%, in Hyderabad at 85%,” Singh said. 

Uber has joined hands with green technologies services startups such as Lithium to roll out over 1,000 EVs across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune. Also, it has also partnered with micro-mobility startups Yulu, Mahindra and Sun Mobility for battery swapping to enable a faster and seamless transition to EVs.

The evolution of India’s EV space over the two years was an “irreversible” trend, Singh added pointing out that the core cabs business was yet to show similar recovery. “The recovery for the core business varies in different cities, but in general, we are seeing very healthy recovering in that part of the portfolio.”

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