Ola & Uber Launch Electric Cabs In India; Will Partner Tata & Mahindra!

With an initial roll out few hundreds cabs in the next few months, both Uber and Ola have committed to scale up the efforts

By Mohul Ghosh On Nov 25, 2017

This week will be remembered as the week of electric vehicles, and the incredible push it is receiving in India.

Within 48 hours, both Uber and Ola, India’s largest app based cab sharing services, have announced plans to roll out electric cabs, in cities like Delhi and Hyderabad.

With an initial roll out few hundreds cabs in the next few months, both Uber and Ola have committed to scale up the efforts, and introduce a new dawn of electric vehicles in India.

Will the market support this revolutionary idea?

Uber & Mahindra Will Launch Electric Cabs

Starting February, Uber will launch electric cabs in New Delhi and Hyderabad; and based on the results, other cities would be considered.

The partnership between M&M and Uber will include a financial package as well, wherein drivers can avail easy loans and installments to procure electric vehicles. To start with, M&M will deliver e2oplus hatch and the e-Verito sedan to Uber for using them as cabs.

As of now, M&M has partnership with Lithium Carbon, Himachal Pradesh government, Amazon and EESL for delivering electric vehicles.

Tata & Ola Will Also Launch Electric Cabs

On the other hand, just 24 hours back, Tata Motors and Ola announced a partnership to kickstart electric cabs in Delhi.

There were rumors earlier, which has been now confirmed.

While Uber and M&M didn’t mention any numbers, Ola is crystal clear: In the next few weeks, Tata will provide 400 cabs to Ola’s Delhi fleet, and customers would be soon seen zipping across electric Ola cabs in the National Capital.

Now, the interesting fact: The electric cabs by Tata won’t have Tata logo attached, these would be customized, turbo-charged electric cabs, altered by Jayem Automobiles.

Coimbatore-based Jayen Automotives had entered into a strategic 50:50 partnership with Tata Motors this April, wherein Tata will provide empty shells of Nana to Jayem, and they will customize it as per electric vehicles standards, and then use them commercially.

This Ola partnership for using 400 electric Nanos is the first such successful commercial venture. The ‘Jayem Nano’ is a 48-volt electric system, producing 23hp of power which is more than enough to power a 800 kg car. With 4-passengers and AC on, this can run the cab for 140-150 kms without any issue.

Officially, Jayem Nano would be officially launched by PM Modi and Ratan Tata in Hyderabad, very soon.

Earlier, Ola had partnered with Mahindra to test run a batch of 200 e20 electric cabs in Nagpur this year. This is the reason India’s first electric vehicle charging station has been launched in Nagpur itself.

No doubt electric cabs in India will make Govt’s vision of replacing all fuel-based vehicles with electric cars by 2020 even more real, and even more possible.

Will electric cabs by Uber and Ola work in India? Do let us know by commenting right here!