Ola's e-taxi trial facing hurdles just 9 months down the line

Ola's electric vehicle trial in Nagpur is currently facing problems in the form of driver complaints. According to a media report, drivers are unhappy over long wait times for charging and high operating costs of the Government backed initiative.

In May 2017, Mahindra and Ola partnered up for the country's first multi-modal electric vehicle (EV) project in Nagpur. As a part of the project, Mahindra would supply over 100 units of e2o Plus to Ola and a further 100 EVs including e-buses, e-cabs, e-rickshaws and e-autos would be procured from various other manufactures including Tata Motors, Kinetic, BYD and TVS.

Ola had also planned to setup over 50 charging points at the airport and four other locations in the city. There are reportedly only 22 charging points as of now. Adding to the lack of charging infrastructure, a charging point was closed down as well due to frequent traffic jams. The alternate facility took over 5 months to come up due to delays in getting various government clearances. As a result of increasing difficulties to sustain in the electric vehicle trial, some of the drivers have decided to return the EVs and switch over to the conventional diesel-run vehicles.

The Indian Government is aiming for an all-electric car fleet by 2030. However, it has not yet laid down clear guidelines on the EV policy in India. Further, with a lack of infrastructure, manufactures are weary of introducing electric cars in the market.

Source - Reuters