BYD and ride-sharing service Uber have announced a new partnership that will see BYD delivering 100,000 EVs to the Uber network. The two companies are upbeat that the massive collaboration will accelerate the integration of electric vehicles into the passenger and ride-hailing/ sharing segment. BYD continues to square up with Tesla for the top spot in the EV market despite a stringent tariff regime preventing it from entering the lucrative US market.

The Uber-BYD engagement is a multi-year strategic partnership that will see BYD delivering 100,000 EVs onto the Uber platform across several countries. The markets cover Europe, the Middle East, Canada, Australia, and Latin America. The project will start with some key markets in Europe and Latin America. In a press statement jointly signed by both companies, it was revealed that the duo is working together to bring down the total cost of EV ownership for Uber drivers. The move is targeted at accelerating the uptake of EVs on the Uber network on a global scale. The move is also aimed at introducing millions of riders to ‘greener rides’.

The agreement, according to Uber’s CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, is the largest global agreement of its kind. It comes with great prospects for the two companies and will significantly reduce the carbon footprint of Uber drivers who switch to EVs. EVs can deliver up to four times the emission benefits compared to a regular ICE Uber car. Last January, Uber announced it was working with Tesla to enhance the accessibility of EVs to its drivers. The move was aimed at enhancing the adoption of EVs by Uber drivers and a $2,000 incentive was on offer for its drivers who wanted to switch.

It is noted that there could be several challenges drivers face in trying to transition to electric vehicles in their Uber ride-sharing service. The cost of ownership and access to convenient charging infrastructure are major impediments to such programs. It remains therefore to be seen how Uber and BYD will make the new strategy attractive to drivers on the Uber network.

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In a move set to transform the constantly-evolving food delivery industry, Uber Eats and Serve Robotics have officially announced their plans to introduce robot food delivery services in major cities across the United States starting in 2026. This joint venture aims to revolutionize the way meals are delivered to customers, providing an automated, seamless and efficient experience.

The robots can go 40 kilometres on a single charge

Serve Robotics, an independent company that broke off from Uber’s business, has developed a four-wheeled robot powered by advanced AI technology for precise path planning. With a remarkable battery life of approximately 40 kilometres, these robots can transport packages weighing up to 23 kilograms, effectively catering to a wide range of delivery needs. Each robot is capable of managing multiple orders daily, ensuring swift and reliable service.

Uber has pledged its commitment to achieving a zero-carbon emission delivery platform by 2040, and the integration of robot deliveries plays a pivotal role in this mission. As part of the service, Uber Eats customers will soon have the option to choose robot delivery for their meals. Once the robot reaches the specified destination, the customer can securely retrieve their order by entering a password, ensuring a seamless and safe experience.

Field testing of robot food delivery services has already commenced in California, marking a significant milestone in the journey toward a fully automated delivery system. Building on this success, Uber plans to expand its partnership with Serve Robotics to include additional cities in 2026. San Jose, California, Dallas, Texas, and Vancouver, Canada are among the locations expected to witness the deployment of up to 2,000 delivery robots.

While the introduction of robot food delivery services holds great promise, there are several potential challenges that these robots may face in urban environments. One significant issue is navigating complex city streets and crowded sidewalks. The robots need to safely maneuver through various obstacles such as pedestrians, cyclists, and vehicles, while adhering to traffic rules. Additionally, they must accurately identify and reach specific delivery locations, which can be challenging in densely populated areas with high-rise buildings and intricate addresses. Moreover, there is the concern of potential theft or vandalism of the robots and their cargo, which may require robust security measures.

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(Via)

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Uber has committed to going all electric with its Uber Green announcement. The company will be offering its taxi service with electric vehicles in India, with the new service set to kick of in select cities next month.

Your next Uber ride could soon be all electric

The popular ride hailing app has announced that it will be launching the Uber Green service in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru starting from early June 2023. This new service will offer you a way to rise in an all electric and zero emission vehicle. So far, the company has only tested the Uber Electric service last year. And now, Uber has officially announced the Green service with a new series of partnerships in India.

This marks the company’s efforts to shift its transportation business model to include more sustainable designs. Notably, this announcement from the brand also arrives as a part of its major goal to hit worldwide zero emissions by 2040. As of right now, the Uber Green is the one of the most sustainable option for mobility with locations that include more than 100 cities across 15 countries. Uber Green is clearly the company’s step to be more environmentally friendly with its new partnerships helping it electrify its ride hailing service.

This includes cooperation with Lithium Urban Technologies, Everest Fleet Private Limited, and Moove are some of the firms it has joined hands with to roll out 25,000 electric vehicles across the planned seven cities. The company is collaborating with Zypp Electric as well to roll out over 10,000 electric motorcycles as well. Furthermore, Uber is even offering loans of up to Rs 1,000 crore to encourage the use of electric of CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) powered vehicles.

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Uber India may, at last, have a solution for the annoying rider whose drivers frequently cancel on them. Uber India has chosen to release an upgrade that can stop users from having their driver canceled by letting the driver view the drop-off location in advance. During testing, it was only applicable to 20 locations and was an experimental measure to see how well it worked. This feature is currently being implemented across the subcontinent, which should help the US-based cab aggregator overcome a significant problem.

Notably, Uber India has also upped driver payouts by 15%. Cab drivers frequently postpone trips after asking the passenger where they want to be dropped off. This move comes after the company recently hiked the fares in view of rising fuel prices in New Delhi, the capital of India.

A new update from the company has been doing the rounds. The update will aid riders in selecting the best driver when requesting a vehicle. The new feature that Uber has implemented will allow drivers to accept or deny the trip request depending on the drop location that will be displayed to them when they are close to the user’s location. This is one of the changes Uber India is putting into place to make things easier for customers, drivers, and riders while also enhancing the overall experience.

Uber said in a statement that it will keep an eye on customer and driver feedback and adjust as necessary. Drivers on the Uber platform in India may now see the trip destination before accepting the ride, which will increase transparency and reduce irritation for both clients and drivers. Uber chose to remove the trip acceptance criterion and roll out the unconditional functionality to all locations after being encouraged by a decline in trip cancellations following the experimental launch in May 2022.

Uber India has also modified the payout cycle so that drivers can receive online payment transfers regularly. Drivers may now determine if a customer will pay with cash or online. Additionally, drivers will also be paid if they have to go a long way to pick up a user.

There’s more excellent news that followed, and it pertains to the Uber Moto partners. Users of Uber Moto will now receive push notifications when waiting charges apply. In order to relieve drivers, operational fees for using airports will also be handled moving forward in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad, and Bangalore Airports.

Uber India wants to make it more acceptable for drivers to cancel fewer trips than in the past by providing some important financial support for them. All Indian cities where the present cab service is offered should expect to see these new modifications soon.

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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWKtjzzYeMo[/embedyt]

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Uber has just hiked the prices of its cab hailing service in India’s capital city, Delhi. The city has seen a rise in the prices of fuel, which has prompted the company to also raise the price of its cab services in the region.

For those unaware, the news arrives after strong protest from drivers that use the app for taxi services. In the past few days, the price of fuel rose suddenly, which cut into the drivers’ profits. This further led to the drivers protesting last week, which was even expected to continue this week as well. But to help cushion the blow, Uber has stepped in by raising prices to help alleviate some of the drivers’ grievances.

So now, the cab prices in Delhi have been hiked by 12 percent in the Delhi and NCR region. Furthermore, the popular cab hailing service has also stated that they will continue to track the price of fuel and take further steps based on future developments in this matter. Notably, the firm had recently also hiked the prices of cab fares in Mumbai by 15 percent.

In a statement, Nitish Bhushan, Head of Central Operations, Uber India said that “We listen to feedback from drivers and understand that the current rise in fuel prices is causing concern. To help cushion drivers from the impact of the spike in fuel prices, Uber has raised trip fares in Delhi NCR by 12%. Over the coming weeks, we will continue to track fuel price movements and will take further steps as needed.”

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Uber, the world’s leading cab-hailing service provider, has announced that it is selling its driverless self-driving car subsidiary to Aurora Technologies for $4 billion. Uber is also investing $400 million in the startup for a 26 percent stake.

As a part of the transaction, Uber’s Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi will be serving on Aurora’s board. The startup, headquartered in Silicon Valley with an office in Pittsburgh, will also be acquiring engineers and support staff of Uber A.T.G.

This acquisition deal is expected to get closed in the first quarter of 2021. The sale of Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group has been valued at $4 billion, which is much lower than its valuation of $7.5 billion last year.

Although Uber is selling its Advanced Technologies Group (A.T.G.) division, the company says that it remains interested in the field. Going forward, the company will be collaborating with Aurora to launch driverless cars on its network. However, Aurora’s CEO Chris Urmson has confirmed that the startup’s first product won’t be a robot taxi but is likely to be a self-driving truck.

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The driverless technology was a key focus for Uber’s founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick as it could help the company get rid of its biggest expense — drivers. With driver-related expenses reducing, the company was hoping to become profitable, ending years of enduring losses in billions of dollars.

However, the autonomous driving unit of Uber has been involved in several legal matters — from pedestrian death to intellectual property theft. While investors have been long pressuring the company to sell its self-driving unit, the company was finally forced to do so after revenue plummeted because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Uber, the known taxi service provider, is planning on selling its air taxi business, Uber Elevate. The company is already in advanced talks to sell the unit to Joby Aviation, an aerospace based firm, as per a new report.

For those unaware, the company had been working on its air taxi unit and had even announced a partnership with Hyundai Motor Co back at the start of this year. This partnership was to develop electric air taxis. At the moment, Uber has yet to comment on the matter when reached out by Reuters. Similarly, even Hyundai did not immediately offer a comment regarding this.

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Back in May, the company had to cut 23 percent of its workforce as a part of aggressive cost cutting after its operations were drastically hit by the Coronavirus outbreak. Since then, it has focused on its core ride hailing and food delivery businesses. Thus, selling the air taxi operations might be due to its inability to manage another project at the moment. Uber has been known to have already been working on other projects as well, including development of self-driving cars, the Elevate project, and even a freight logistics network.

However, these might soon also be being sold, as Uber is also in talks to sell its self driving business as well. Unfortunately, we currently do not have further details regarding the matter and will have to wait for more information or an announcement from the company itself to know more. So stay tuned for more updates.

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Huawei’s ever-expanding App store, the AppGallery has a new addition today – Bolt. The emerging ride-hailing app in Europe is often considered as a cheaper alternative to Uber especially in cities like London. And with this addition, Huawei users finally have a popular ride-hailing service on its own app store.

Bolt’s presence on the Huawei AppGallery is a win-win for both the companies. Despite the US ban, Huawei is still the third-largest smartphone maker in Europe with a solid 18% market share. However, until today, AppGallery lacked a popular ride-hailing app like Uber. Technically, you could get the missing apps via third-party app stores like APKPure and Amazon App Store for Android. But now, Bolt fills this void without the need to download any other app store.

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Bolt has been gaining a lot of attention in the past few months. In fact, in June 2020, it was voted as the Hottest Unicorn in Europe! The startup recently raised €100 million from Naya Capital Management which it will use to expand its ride-hailing, e-scooter, and even food delivery businesses.

Huawei has managed to add a number of important apps to its AppGallery this year. You’ll find popular apps in multiple categories like Deezer, TIDAL, MX Player, RT, UKTVPlay, Eurosport, Premier League in media and entertainment and Viber, Telegram, TikTok, Tinder, Zoom, Badoo in social. And as of March 2020, Huawei has already integrated over 60,000 apps with HMS Core.

With no signs of respite from the ban, it makes sense for Huawei to invest heavily in its own products like the AppGallery. In this regard, the company recently launched the HUAWEI HMS App Innovation Contest – with an award pool of USD$1 Million Prize.

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India’s one of the leading food delivery platform Zomato has today announced the acquisition of UberEats’ business in India in an all-stock deal. While the company has not revealed the value of this transaction, report indicates that acquisition of Uber’s food delivery business is at around $350 million.

As a part of this deal, Uber will now get around 9.9 percent stake in Zomato. Also, UberEats, which operates in 41 cities, will now redirect its customers to Zomato. The deal comes days after Zomato raised $150 million funding from existing investor Ant Financial, valuing the company at $3 billion.

While delivery partners associated with UberEats India will on-board Zomato’s fleet, around 245 employees of UberEats will be affected by this deal as they will not be absorbed by Zomato as part of the transaction. However, it is being said that Uber is trying to find ways to absorb them within its business.

With Uber Eats, Zomato will now collectively have a 55 percent share of the food delivery market in India and compete largely with homegrown Swiggy. Zomato currently delivers to over 550 cities across the nation.

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The move to sell UberEats India, which had been in works since months, is aimed at cutting losses at the ride hailing company’s food delivery business that has been a drag on the company’s earnings.

UberEats entered the Indian market in 2017 and scaled business to 41 cities with over 65,000 riders who deliver food from 26,000 restaurant partners. The company, which was once seen as a major competitor to Zomato and Swiggy, started struggling in India’s hyper-competitive market.

With the sale of the food business in India, Uber can now focus on the rides business and driving it towards profitability. Besides cutting losses in India, Uber is now taking a stake in a startup that was valued at $3 billion earlier this month.

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One major challenge faced in big cities is traffic congestion. Several ways have been recommended to tackle this challenge such as the use of bikes. Air transportation is also being looked at and in this regard, ride-hailing firm Uber’s flying taxi partner Bells has taken to CES 2019 to showcase the design of its air taxi. The taxi is dubbed Bell Nexus and is a five-person hybrid-electric powered vehicle with six tilting ducted fans capable of vertical takeoff and landing.

The Bell Nexus was first revealed at CES last year but the only the cabin but this time around a  complete prototype is being shown off. The company plans to have the Nexus operational by the “mid-2020s” but no definite date has been fixed, according to Bell’s director of innovation, Scott Drennan. “This is not a toy. This is an aircraft you would feel safe and comfortable bringing your family into,” the director said. We won’t be seeing a working prototype anytime soon as that will be done closer to its official launch.

Bell CEO Mitch Snyder recognise the need to solve transportation challenges in the vertical dimension as space at the ground level becomes limited. “The industry has anticipated the reveal of our air taxi for some time, so Bell is very proud of this moment. We believe the design, taken with our strategic approach to build this infrastructure, will lead to the successful deployment of the Bell Nexus to the world.” he added. 

Apart from Bell, Uber is also working with a number of companies on its future air taxi service. Uber showcased one of its air taxi prototypes at its Uber Elevate Summit, and it has said it aims to have aircrafts available for commercial operations by 2023. Uber views the revealing of Bell’s design a “major step” in its effort to develop “an on-demand Uber Air network.”

(source, via)

For more CES 2019 coverage, check out this link.

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Remember Vernee, the new kid in the market from Shenzen, China, who got quite the attention from the media because of its 6GB RAM smartphone, the Vernee Apollo?

Well, it looks like this high-tech company is not just working on its flagship product, the Apollo. The company is also working on a mid-range smartphone called as the Vernee Thor, and it’s going to be a unique device because it will be a Uber-featured smartphone.

According to the latest information, Vernee and Uber have reportedly entered into some kind of cooperation to release a brand new “Uber-featured” smartphone. Now, we are not entirely sure how Uber comes into this picture, but it is said that the phone will deliver smooth experience as fast as lightning (hence the name THOR) which is synonymous with Uber’s service and reliability.

As for the phone itself, the Vernee Thor will feature mid-range specs with software optimizations. The phone will feature a sleek, smooth and curved design with rubber paint. The first renders of the device are already included in the post.

As for the specs, the Vernee Thor is said to come with a 5-inch HD On-cell display with Mediatek’s MT6753 octa-core chipset under the hood. There will be 3GB of RAM inside with 16GB of internal storage, further expandable up to 128GB via MicroSD card slot.

At the back, the Vernee Thor will feature a 13MP camera while up front, a 5MP Shooter. Detailed information about the camera specs are not yet available. Finally, inside, the phone will come with a 2800mAh battery, which should be fine, considering the Cortex A53 powered processor and the low-power consuming 5-inch 720p screen.

Vernee is yet to specify an exact release date for the Vernee Thor, but expect a launch sometime in April. Since its partnership with Uber, you can expect the app to come pre-installed with the device. But we are not yet sure about the specifics of the agreement, so we better wait for more details from the company.

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