The future of the transport industry is green, so it seems, and as such we’re starting to see more and more environmentally friendly options popping up in the auto industry and its runoffs. Ride-hailing app Bolt will soon give South African users the ability to hail electronic and hybrid vehicles.
Bolt gets electric
Bolt’s EV offering, which falls into a ‘Green’ ride category, isn’t exactly new. It’s been available in Kenya for a minute now, and both Kenya and South Africa have had access to the company’s e-bike food courier services for a few months now. Bringing the EV option for transport is just Bolt’s way of extending its green efforts.
According to Bolt’s regional director for Africa and the Middle East, Paddy Partridge, this new option should arrive within “the next few months.”
Other parts of the world have been making use of EV-offering ride-hail services for a while now, through apps like Lyft and Uber. South Africa is a little late to the party, but that’s mainly due to the lack of supporting infrastructure (like easily accessed charging stations). Though that’s slowly changing, hence Bolt’s venture.
Not only that, but in case you didn’t know, EVs are expensive enough as it is, and getting them to SA often also involves import costs, so it’s not hard to see why individual Bolt drivers haven’t been making these changes themselves.
Bolt says it’s working with a number of African banks to arrange financing and leasing plans to get its drivers’ electric vehicles. Not only because this would cut down on the company’s carbon footprint, but also because it should ” eliminate the challenges associated with constantly fluctuating fuel prices, currently the most significant operating cost for our couriers,” according to Partridge.
While it will still be a while before we see these new green vehicles in the wild, it’s still a pretty admirable move from the ride-hailing app. Let’s see if Uber and the more recently launched Didi follow suit.
Source: Tech Crunch