In a bid to promote last-mile emissions-free connectivity Uber has partnered with an e-bike sharing service in the Indian city of Bengaluru.
World-leading cab hailing service Uber has initiated a pilot partnership with Yulu, an e-bike sharing service in India. The pilot project has been launched in the southern city of Bengaluru, often called the Silicon Valley of India. The city is notoriously infamous for its bustling traffic. 
In its press release Uber stated that the e-bike service would help commuters, very likely young professionals plagued with the city traffic, to beat the congestion. The company claims that the Yulu bikes can reach speeds of 25 km/hour (15.5 miles/hour) which is greater than the average traffic speed in the city.
Commuters would be able to book the Yulu bikes from within the Uber app with a link redirecting to the Yulu booking page. In order to promote the service Uber will offer the first three Yulu rides for free.
Clearly Uber sees e-bikes holding significant business potential, especially in a country like India. E-bikes could not only be popular among the massive young urban population in the country but also conform to the government policies that favor and promote electric mobility in public transport.
While similar services have been launched across some other cities as well in the country, they have not found many takers. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation offers metro riders bicycles that are available right outside some stations to complete their journey. Uber’s India competitor Ola Cabs also experimented with such bicycle sharing service, however, its current status remains unknown.
The e-bike sharing service launched by Uber may be attractive to commuters as it has some integration within the Uber app, and the bikes can provide decent travel speed in urban cities struggling to solve their traffic problems.
The Indian government has announced several broad policy initiatives to promote electric mobility. Up until now, however, these policies have shown results only in the public transport segment instead of private transportation. E-rickshaws and electric scooters remain significantly more popular than electric cars. Such initiatives, backed by popular private sector brands, could definitely help in greater proliferation of electric mobility options in the public transport segment.
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