Mahindra to offer electric cars on Uber platform
MUMBAI: India’s only electric vehicle maker Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd on Friday entered into a non-exclusive partnership with cab aggregator Uber to deploy its electric sedan e-VERITO and electric hatchback e2oPlus on the Uber platform in New Delhi and Hyderabad, to begin with. “As pioneers of electric vehicles (EVs) in the country, we would like to be at the forefront, leading this charge towards smart and sustainable mobility”, said Pawan Goenka, managing director of the Mumbai-based automaker, at a press conference to announce the collaboration.
The partnership will include sale of Mahindra EVs at competitive prices, attractive financing and insurance premiums and maintenance packages, the company said in a statement.
Mahindra and Uber will also work with public and private entities to set up a common-use charging ecosystem across several cities in India. “We are also looking to understand Uber’s traffic and mobility data for the next two months to determine the locations to set up charging infrastructure,” said Goenka.
The first vehicles will ply on the roads of New Delhi and Hyderabad at the end of February 2018, according to Madhu Kannan, chief business officer, Uber India. The dearth of charging infrastructure is causing the delay, he added.
Goenka conceded that “the charging infrastructure is the main missing piece in terms of EVs taking off and is coming up but very slowly.”
New Delhi and Hyderabad were chosen to run the pilot because “they seem to be the most proactive in establishing charging infrastructure”, he said. No other details were shared about the expansion of the pilot to other cities.
The Mumbai-based company will withdraw from setting up charging infrastructure as more charging suppliers emerge, which Goenka believes will be accelerated by the tender for 4,000 charging stations in New Delhi and NCR, floated by state-owned Energy Efficiency Services Ltd.
At the conference, Goenka mentioned that Mahindra will match the lowest bid for the second phase for the EESl tender to acquire 10,000 EVs for the central government and its agencies. Goenka did not specify the number of vehicles the company will bid for.
Mahindra sold over 600 EVs in the first seven months of the fiscal year, a number not much higher than its FY2016 sales.