New Delhi: Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd’s electric mobility arm, Mahindra Electric Mobility Ltd, on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Goldie Srivastava-led SmartE, one of India’s largest electric vehicle fleet operators. According to the MoU, SmartE will deploy the first 1,000 Mahindra Treo and Treo Yaari electric three-wheelers in Delhi NCR by March 2019, Mahindra said in a statement. SmartE also plans to deploy a total of 10,000 Mahindra electric three-wheelers across India by 2020, the statement added.

The two firms have come together to offer “convenient, affordable and zero-emission last-mile connectivity", in major Indian cities apart from New Delhi, the statement said. “The partnership is an example of collaboration between companies to address India’s growing need for clean, shared and public mobility solutions, and it aims to rapidly transform the overall EV adoption rate in the country."

“India is witnessing rapid urbanization and metros are driving the multi-modal mobility needs of the large working population in urban cities. Our Treo range of three wheelers will address the demand for first and last mile connectivity and transform the way urban India travels. Associations with partners such as SmartE will make it easier to adopt electric mobility and enable our cities to be more environment-friendly," said Mahesh Babu, chief executive at Mahindra Electric.

“As a pioneer in the electric mobility service space, SmartE plans to roll-out 100,000 vehicles by 2022. We believe Mahindra Electric’s solutions will play a critical role in our growth strategy," said Goldie Srivastava, co-founder and chief executive at SmartE.

Mahindra is banking on SmartE’s ongoing partnership with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, among other organizations, and a daily reach of nearly 80,000 rides. In the past three years since inception, SmartE has completed over 30 million pollution-free rides, the statement said. The MoU will specifically address the last-mile connectivity needs of Delhi Metro commuters.

SmartE, which has already built an EV charging network for 800 vehicles (concurrently), will make the investment to ramp up its charging network to support the additional 1,000 vehicles. With this MoU, SmartE’s fleet of EVs will cross 2,000 vehicles by March 2019 and will help serve over 200,000 commuters per day.

As India’s only commercial electric vehicle maker so far, Mahindra currently has over 5,000 EVs on-road, which have clocked more than 95 million kms. The Treo boasts range of 170km (as an electric auto) and 129km (as an e-rickshaw).

The MoU with SmartE is Mahindra’s bid to consolidate its first-mover advantage in electric vehicles, through increasing commercial applications for its electric vehicles.

In the past two years, the Mumbai-based automaker has also tied up with ride hailing firms Ola (ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd) and the local arm of Uber Technologies Inc.

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