Uber to begin pilot with Sling Mobility, first to bring two-wheeler EVs to its platform in Sri Lanka

Uber Sri Lanka Country Manager Thanushika Sivanathan (left) with Sling Mobility Co-Founder Love Yadav

Uber, one of Sri Lanka’s leading ridesharing apps, yesterday announced a pilot with Sling Mobility, a global provider of platform as a service (PaaS) for building a smart EV ecosystem. 

As part of this pilot, Uber will on-board an electric two-wheeler fleet that is run and operated by Sling Mobility on its platform. Sling will also offer easy financial solutions including a unique battery subscription model to reduce the EV adoption cost for existing and new driver partners on the Uber platform. 

On Sling electric bikes, driver partners on the Uber platform will be able to work across modes: ferry riders on bikes with ‘Uber Moto’ as well as deliver packages with ‘Uber Connect’.

With this partnership, Uber became the first ridesharing platform in Sri Lanka to introduce two-wheeler EVs on its platform as part of its efforts to build sustainable mobility in the country. As part of its global sustainability goal, Uber is committed to become a fully zero-emission platform by 2040, with 100% of rides taking place in zero-emission vehicles, on public transit, or with micro mobility.  

Uber Sri Lanka Country Manager Thanushika Sivanathan said: “At Uber, we believe that the future of mobility is shared, electric, and multi-modal. With this partnership, we aim to accelerate the transition to zero emissions by enabling drivers to go electric. We are committed to doing our part to remove barriers to electrification by working with industry partners on innovative solutions.” 

Sling Mobility offers integrated mobility solutions to operate and run EV fleets, complete with battery swapping architecture that cuts down recharging time and facilitates seamless EV transition by minimising rider downtime. The platform will also offer efficiency with embedded cloud connected IoT devices and MFF2 Sims in the vehicles to be used for the first time in Sri Lanka for smart decision-making based on real-time data analytics. The Sling smart system is connected with the Verdana SaaS platform to generate carbon credit data on a real time basis using its unique blockchain protocols.

Sling Mobility Co-founder Love Yadav said: “We are focused on bringing our fleet electrification model to Sri Lanka to grow sustainable mobility in the country. 

“By bringing together a smart EV fleet, cloud connected swappable battery architecture complete with swapping stations, and Cloud Computing, we increase efficiency to facilitate easy EV transition. We are confident that our partnership with Uber will help further our shared sustainability agenda.”

Uber will continue to adopt a partnership-led model and join hands with OEMs, fleet partners, EV infrastructure partners, among others to advance EV transition in Sri Lanka. 

Sling Mobility is a global platform as a Service (PaaS) entity which offers a 360 degree EV based ecosystem for retail logistics, e/m commerce segments. Apart from Sri Lanka, Sling is entering Bangladesh as its next key market with an intention to scale out to entire South and South East Asia further to Africa and South America. 

Sling’s core product architecture addresses rider downtime with battery swapping, affordability by battery subscription model and true sustainability by solar energy for battery charging.