Uber picks Delhi for e-rickshaw launch in India

Ride hailing platform Uber on Tuesday said it has deployed 100 e-rickshaws across metro stations in the national capital to offer short distance rides.

The city, among the most polluted cities in the world, is the first in India to avail Uber’s e-rickshaw booking service.

The micro-mobility product on the Uber app will be available across 26 metro stations on Delhi Metro’s blue line, a statement said.

“With multimodal service offerings like micro mobility and public transit options, all in the Uber app, Delhi residents will now be able to complete their journey seamlessly,” the statement said.

The launch, Uber said, is in line with its recently announced commitment to make all rides on its platform 100% emission-free by 2040 through zero-emission vehicles and the integration of public transport and micro-mobility, globally.

Read: Uber gross bookings in Q2 drop 73%, amid muted recovery in India mobility biz

Earlier this year, Uber laid off about 600 full time employees across driver and rider support verticals in India. The firings were part of the global layoffs outlined by the company in May, where the company planned to let go of about 6,700 people.

As several emerging technology-enabled businesses operating in the mobility space reeled under challenges posed by Covid-19 related restrictions across the globe, companies have only recently started seeing a pick up in demand.

“As people start travelling again, we have an opportunity to reduce our environmental impact and this launch is just one of the many steps we are taking to operationalize our vision of building a self-sustaining ecosystem which will cater to the country’s growing need for clean transport solutions,” Shiva Shailendran, general manager at Uber’s north and west India operations, said.

In another of the San Francisco, California-based earliest experiments with micro-mobility in India, it tied up with micro-mobility platform service Yulu to offer electric bikes to users on a pilot basis in the southern city of Bengaluru, in May 2019.