Bike-rental company Bounce has begun rolling electric scooters in Bengaluru. The Economic Times reported in July that Bounce was looking to acquire fresh funding to add electric vehicles to their repertoire.
Now, Bounce has joined the electric mobility fray by introducing 1,000 new electric bikes to their existing fleet of around 11,000 petrol-run bikes.
Commuters can avail the electric bikes as through the Bounce app on smartphones by booking any vehicle that is close-by.
Electric bikes are differentiated slightly on the app, with a small additional thunderbolt icon on the map.
Shared mobility platforms are also working towards rolling out electric vehicles. Yulu has introduced small one-seater electric bikes for last-mile connectivity, in addition to their fleet of shared bicycles.
Bounce is currently working on R&D to convert their existing fleet of petrol bikes into electric, and had seen some positive results. When contacted, Bounce told TNM that the plan for the long term was to make the entire fleet electric. However, the focus on the short-term is to make at least half of the fleet electric.
The range is said to be around 80-100 km, depending on usage. Bounce has developed technology for swappable batteries that can be exchanged for fully charged batteries at kiosks that are around the city. Unlike other electric scooters, there is currently no provision for charging the bike, as the charging time for each battery is four hours. The time to swap a discharged battery with a charged one is about one minute.
The pricing for the petrol bike and electric bike, remains the same, for now: 1 rupee per km, along with usage charges of 1.50 per minute. There are no plans to reduce the pricing for electric bikes, since prices are already considered low, the company says.
The push towards electric vehicles has increased in recent years, in both private and public transportation. Electric buses were recently rolled-out in multiple cities across Tamil Nadu and the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation has previously announced that the state will have 300 electric buses on the road in the near future.