Uber and Ola face Disruption from Electric Vehicles Startups

The Indian cab market is dominated by the online taxi aggregators Ola and Uber who have seen “uber” growth over the last five years. Such has been the domination of these two companies that vehicle sales in major Indian cities have started to decline as more and more people rely on these cheap and easily accessible cab aggregators to meet their transportation needs. These companies have also diversified into not only transportation through four wheelers but also through two and three wheelers. They are also starting to act as food tech companies by providing logistics to the rapidly growing restaurant industry in India.

But these two disruptors may see their dominance upended by the EV revolution that is set to sweep India. While Ola has made efforts to ride this paradigm change by introducing a number of EVs in the city of Nagpur, Uber has not done much now.

A new startup by the name of BLU-SMART is launching a green EV taxi service in India’s capital to take on these giants. The company will use only EVs to run its cab service and will procure cheap EVs from India’s local automaker Mahindra. The company plans to further diversify its fleet by buying Tigo sedans from Tata Motors. Both of these vehicles had won bids put up by India’s government-owned company EESL to supply 5000 vehicles.

BLU-SMART is going to position itself as a green alternative in a city where air pollution has become a huge problem. The company plans to have prices which are only slightly higher than the major cab aggregators and will appeal to the environmental consciousness of citizens who might prefer its service compared to the likes of Ola and Uber. BLU-Smart is also planning to develop 65 charging stations on its own as India does not have a charging infrastructure in place as of now. There are a number of startups which have entered the EV space. Lithium is another major cab service using EVS, but it is targeting corporates. Besides cab and taxi services, there are a number of startups which have entered the manufacturing space. As we said before, India’s EV industry is going to be a multi-hundred billion dollar opportunity over the next decade and smart entrepreneurs are already positioning themselves to take advantage.