The increase in pollution rate and the need to bring back a greener environment has made way for electric vehicles. In fact, the global electric vehicle market which was valued $118,864.5 million in 2017 is projected to hit $567,299.8 million by 2025 with a CAGR of 22.3%. Given the scope for electric vehicles, there is a significant rise in EV sales and China tops at the same.

Why electric vehicles are trending

As electric vehicles do not run on fuel, they can cut short up to 65% of fleet expenses. Given the frequent hike in fuel prices, electric vehicles are a good alternative for their fuel-based counterparts. Besides, it is easy to maintain electric vehicles as the electric motor comprises fewer parts than a conventional combustion engine. With such benefits, electric vehicles hold a greater scope for the ride-hailing industry.

Boosting ride-hailing businesses with EV

As today’s commuters prefer to stay eco-friendly, offering mobility services via electric vehicles can be a good marketing strategy for ride-hailing businesses. Across the globe, several automakers and TNC companies seek partnership with each other as an attempt to gain mutual benefits. With these partnerships, ride-hailing companies boost customer engagement while automakers boost sales opportunities and gain shares of the corresponding ride-hailing companies.

Uber has announced a partnership with popular automaker Hyundai to offer electric air taxi services. Besides, the leading ride-hailing service provider also teamed up with Sun Mobility, a Bangalore-based startup in 2019 to offer electric auto-rickshaws rides for Indian commuters.

Volkswagen launched a pilot project in partnership with Siemens to test the feasibility of electric mobility in Africa in October 2019. Also, Hyundai and Kia that invested 300 million USD in India’s Ola by the end of 2019 are likely to introduce a new mobility service this year featuring their electric vehicles.

All these collaborations between the industry players is a sign of ride-hailing achieving multi-dimensional growth with the end-to-end implementation of electric mobility.

EV limitations and overcoming them

Despite the perks, there are limitations that the electric vehicles are supposed to overcome in order to secure their place in the ride-hailing industry. As electric vehicles are still at the surface level, they only run a maximum of 150 miles once fully charged. Besides, there are no sufficient charge stations for them. Also, there is no universal legal framework for the use of electric vehicles.

To confront the unavailability of charge stations, the Indian government has invited proposals for EV charge points with an initial plan to set up 1,000 EV charging points across the country. Also, China’s DiDi Chuxing, has partnered with BP, an energy company based in Britain to set up a robust electric vehicle charging network. If the automakers can deploy electric vehicles with better mileage and if the ride-hailing companies can rightly meet regional laws to launch their electric fleet, electric vehicles are here to stay.

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