Eternal’s food delivery platform Zomato has launched a pilot phase for an electric vehicle rental bike fleet in Delhi for its delivery partners.
The pilot phase would introduce 300 bikes and is a part of Zomato’s climate-conscious delivery goal of facilitating 100% EV-based food deliveries by 2030.
The Deepinder Goyal-led company has over 37,000 active EV-based food delivery partners. The pilot will expand the initiative to areas beyond Delhi-NCR based on uptake from the delivery partners.
“For this (sustainable mobility) to be achieved, it is imperative to build an ecosystem where all delivery partners have easy access to EV bikes suited to the demands of food delivery. Through the launch of these specially designed, efficient electric bikes on rent, we’re ensuring delivery partners can thrive while contributing to building a greener tomorrow,” shared Anjalli Ravi Kumar, Chief Sustainability Officer, Eternal.
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The rental fleet would enable delivery partners to use sustainable and relatively affordable EVs for deliveries compared to internal combustion engine (ICE) bikes.
EVs have a high upfront cost, but the total ownership cost is much lower than traditional ICE vehicles, making it an increasingly preferred option.
Quick commerce and food delivery players heavily rely on gig workers as delivery partners to sustain their hyper-local operations.
Swiggy and Zomato together account for a significant chunk of Indian gig-workforce. Swiggy had also previously announced its plans for a 100% EV delivery fleet by 2030.
Ecommerce major Flipkart had undertaken a similar target for its last mile delivery five years ago, Last September, the company touched a milestone of 10,000 electric vehicles in its last mile supply chain. It currently has 13,300 EVs in its fleet.
Edited by Jyoti Narayan
