EV bike taxi ride service in India gets a leg up

Homegrown bike taxi platform Rapido has tied up with Zypp Electric to launch an electric vehicle-focused bike taxi ride service called Rapido EV. It will be onboarding over 100 riders and electric two-wheelers from Zypp Electric.

The new service will be available under the Ride section in the Rapido app. It will be priced at the Rapido Ride rate with a minimal convenience fee. Customers will have to download the app, log in to their account, and book a Rapido Ride, through their iOS or Android smartphones.

Looking the at cost of the ride hailing service mentioned above as ‘Rapido rate’, the fare includes a base fare of Rs 15 in addition to Rs 3 for every kilometer of the rides. This is also the price of their petrol variant two-wheeler services.

Bike rides are generally inexpensive and more convenient than any other transportation method in India. According to Forbes, the commuter’s ride is 40% to 60% cheaper than a cab ride.

The service will be a pilot run for three months (starting from March) and will be tested for its demand and veracity in the Delhi-NCR area. The company is planning to on-board more such EV partners to further expand this business model across its Tier-I market in the country after the success of the pilot run.

Rapido also has rental services in package formats which start from Rs 99 for 1 hour with a 10 kilometres distance limitation.

Speaking on the launch of their ‘Rapido EV’ bike taxi, Aravind Sanka, co-founder of 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.”