India’s largest bike taxi platform, Rapido, has launched an electric two-wheeler taxi service. The ride-hailing platform has partnered with Zypp Electric to provide EV service in the country.
The new service aims to reduce its carbon footprint and encourage the use of environment-friendly vehicles. Rapido will be onboarding over 100 riders and electric two-wheelers from Zypp Electric as part of its Captain fleet.
The electric two-wheeler taxi service will initially be a pilot run for three months starting from March 2021. The company will launch the service initially in the Delhi-NCR area and evaluate the response before expanding it to other cities in the country. The company will on-board more such EV partners to further expand this business in the country.
Rapido EV Rides will be available under the Ride section on the app and will be priced at the Rapido Ride rate with a minimal convenience fee. Customers have to download the app, log in to their account and book a Rapido Ride, through their iOS/Android phones.
All ride captains will follow the set Covid-19 safety guidelines set last year. The captains are expected to sanitize and clean the vehicle and all customer accessible areas after every ride. Also, the usage of masks during the entire ride has been made mandatory for Captains and passengers.
Announcing the launch of Rapido EV, Aravind Sanka, Co-Founder, Rapido, said, “While India is the largest two-wheeler market, only 1% of it is electric. With the launch of Rapido EV rides, we want to give a unique experience to our users along with contributing positively to the environment and reduce our carbon footprint.”
He further added, “The recent World Air Quality report by Swiss technology company IQAir ranked Delhi as the world’s most polluted Capital among 106 countries and we hope that this move helps contribute to the betterment of the air quality in the city.”
In partnership with Rapido, Akash Gupta, Co-Founder, Zypp Electric, said, “We at Zypp are becoming the de-facto EV layer when it comes to goods and people movement. The partnership with Rapido is part of a highly focused EV utilization project where we wish to ensure that every segment can switch to EVs comfortably.”
He further added, “With our robust battery-swapping network which will be tested with bike taxi services with Rapido, we’re here to bolster the EV proposition together with this partnership and would love to scale this nationally making people get pollution free taxi rides too.”
Thoughts About The Rapido Launches Electric Two-Wheeler Taxi
The demand for electric two-wheelers is constantly rising in the Indian market. Many ride-sharing platforms are offering EV service to help reduce the carbon footprint. With the rise in fuel prices, the EV ride-sharing service is also an affordable option.