Uber, the global ride sharing app, today announced a slew of partnerships to electrify its services in India, teaming up with leading industry players to accelerate the transition to sustainable mobility. As part of the sustainability push, the mobility major announced the rollout of Uber Green in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, starting June 2023. Uber Green allows passengers to request an all-electric, zero tail-pipe emission vehicle rather than a regular fossil-fuelled car, bringing to India an on-demand EV experience with just a few taps on the app. Uber Green is the most widely available on-demand mobility solution in the world for no or low emission rides, present in 100+ cities in 15 countries around the world.
Commenting at the event, Andrew Macdonald, Senior Vice President, Mobility and Business Operations at Uber, said, “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. Today, we are taking a major step toward that goal with the launch of Uber Green. We know that our impact goes beyond technology. We are determined to become allies of cities and governments as they seek to combat climate change and pollution through sustainable mobility.”
Alongside the launch of Uber Green, Uber announced a series of new partnerships to sustain the EV momentum:
- Fleet Partner Expansion: Uber is expanding its network of fleet partners to unlock EV growth on its platform. 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.
- EV Two Wheeler Partnership: Uber is tying up with tech-enabled EV-as-a-service startup Zypp Electric to deploy 10,000 electric two-wheelers by 2024 to boost sustainable mobility in its fast-growing Uber Moto category. Over 1000 Zypp Electric two-wheelers are already deployed on Uber Moto in Delhi.
- EV Financing: Uber and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) have signed an MoU to support the purchase of cleaner fuel vehicles – EV and CNG. The partnership will help provide affordable loans of approximately Rs 1000 crores, creating an enabling environment to shift from high emission fuel vehicles to no or low tailpipe emission vehicles.
- EV Charging Infrastructure: Uber is forging two significant partnerships in the field of charging infrastructure. It is bringing its global mobility agreement with bp pulse to India in partnership with Jio-bp. This partnership will enable the drivers on Uber platform to get access to their charging networks and also enable new charging infra development. Uber has also signed an MoU with GMR Green energy to create bespoke charging facilities.
Speaking at the launch, Prabhjeet Singh, President, Uber India and South Asia said, “Going all-electric is a challenge that’s bigger than Uber. We can’t do it alone. To be successful, the economic burden of making the transition to EVs should not fall on drivers. With these industry leading partnerships, we are matching commitment with action to help drivers go electric faster and supercharge sustainable transition in India’s ride sharing industry.”
Uber has committed to become a zero-emissions mobility platform by 2030 in Europe and North America, and globally by 2040. On sustainability, Uber has more than tripled the number of electric vehicles on the platform and connected 31 million unique riders with a ride in an electric vehicle in 2022. The Science Based Targets Initiative has also approved Uber’s near and long-term science-based emissions reduction targets, making us one of the first 30 US-based companies to have such targets approved
