In India’s Largest EV Fleet Order, TATA Motors to Deliver 25,000 E-Sedans to Uber

Tata Motors and Uber have signed an MoU for the supply of electric sedans. Under the agreement, TATA Motors, the largest maker of electric cars in India, will supply 25,000 of its X-Pres-T electric sedans to ride-hailing giant Uber. This is India’s largest order for electric vehicles between the EV manufacturer and the ride-hailing company in India.

This is Tata Motors’ second such large deal with a ride-hailing company..Tata had signed an agreement with Gurugram-based all-electric cab company BluSmart Mobility for delivering 10,000 XPRES-T EVs in June last year.

It should be noted that  Uber will not directly buy these vehicles but will partner with financiers and help medium and large-sized fleet operators on its platform to purchase these EVs by facilitating access to the vehicles in a supply-constrained environment. The EV rides will be offered in the premium category. For easy charging, it will also work with charge point operators to deploy fast chargers at airports and railway stations, as well as install home-charging solutions in low-income neighbourhoods or multi-housing units where driver partners reside.

Shailesh Chandra, Managing Director of passenger vehicles and passenger electric mobility, Tata Motors said, “On our side, we have ramped up our capacity significantly by working with our suppliers to increase localization. There is a good level of fungibility when it comes to the capacity we use for manufacturing our EVs in the personal mobility segment and the fleet segment. If, for instance, we see a good level of stock building up for passenger EVs, we can dial down PVs and increase supplies of the Xpres-T EVs, and vice-versa.”

The Uber platform is also open to working with “multiple partners” to recruit more electric vehicles on the platform across the two-wheeler, three-wheeler and four-wheeler categories. Ride-sharing platforms are looking to make vehicles on their platforms emissions-friendly, with Uber committing to offer all its rides through EVs, micro-mobility or public transport on its platform worldwide by 2040.

With this partnership, the drivers will get guaranteed economic returns on their investment and leverage Uber’s platform expertise to plan where and when to deploy the vehicles, informed Prabhjeet Singh, President of India and South Asia at Uber.

Seven major Uber markets will see these rides viz. In  Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad, in a phased manner. The first lot of deliveries already underway in Delhi and Mumbai. Uber is working on a three-year plan to deploy them. Tata Motors targets production of these vehicles within the next 15 months.

TATA launched the XPRES brand in July 2021 exclusively for fleet customers, and the XPRES-T EV as the first vehicle under this brand. The carmaker currently shares more than 70 per cent of overall electric four-wheeler passenger cars in the country.

The XPres-T compact sedan is the fleet version of Tata Motors’ Tigor EV. TATA sells the EV in two variants under this brand that is designed and engineered to optimize the total cost of ownership and connectivity for fleet operators.