The global ride-sharing app Uber on Wednesday announced that it will introduce ‘all-electric’ service in Bengaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai starting from June as part of its commitment to become a zero-emissions mobility platform by 2040.
The new service called ‘Uber Green’ will allow passengers to request an all-electric, zero tail-pipe emission vehicle rather than a regular fossil-fuelled car. This will be an on-demand service.
Prabhjeet Singh, President, Uber India, and South Asia, said the ‘Uber Green’ service will be first introduced in three cities starting from June and gradually expanded to other cities.
Uber also announced signing of a series of agreements to enable faster adoption of electric vehicles.
Uber and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) signed an MoU to support the purchase of cleaner vehicles – EV and CNG. As part of the agreement, SIDBI will provide Rs 1000 crore affordable loans to Uber partner drivers for purchase of EV and CNG vehicles.
Addressing an event to unveil ‘Uber Green’ service and partnerships, Andrew Macdonald, Senior Vice President, Mobility and Business Operations at Uber, said India is the third largest market for Uber in terms of volume.
“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.
Uber India head Prabhjeet Singh admitted that low penetration of charging facilities remains a big bottleneck in the adoption of electric vehicles in the country.
Singh said Uber has signed agreements with Jio-bp and GMR Green to enable charging facilities. The partnership will enable the drivers on Uber platform to get access to their charging networks and also enable new charging infra development.
Lithium Urban Technologies, India’s largest B2B fleet service provider, Everest Fleet Private Limited, and Moove, Uber’s global fleet partner, will deploy 25,000 electric vehicles across Uber’s top seven cities helping drivers go electric faster.
In a bid to push the use of EV two-wheelers, Uber announced an agreement with tech-enabled EV-as-a-service startup Zypp Electric to deploy 10,000 electric two-wheelers by 2024.
Over 1000 Zypp Electric two-wheelers are already deployed on Uber Moto in Delhi, Singh said.
Uber has committed to become a zero-emissions mobility platform by 2030 in Europe and North America, and globally by 2040.