Uber and Ola have a new challenger in India – and it’s a large car maker

• Mahindra and Mahindra has launched a premium shared mobility service called Glyd.
  
• The service – Glyd – will have only Mahindra’s Electric Vehicles in its fleet.
  
• While it has been launched in Mumbai, it will soon move to other cities.

Mahindra and Mahindra has launched a cab-hailing service called Glyd for the office-going crowd. The service is powered by electric vehicles and will come as a new rival for companies like Uber and Ola in India.

While the ownership is Mahindra’s, the fleet of 10 e-Veritos for now and drivers will be managed by a third party. The service has been launched in Mumbai and will expand to other Indian cities soon.

The tech-based e-mobility service is designed for the office going crowd with features like web-conferencing along with curated entertainment and music content provided from partners. It also boasts of additional features like privacy screen, air purifier, wrap-around headrest among others.

The services will be marketed as a “premium” service.

"The company has from time to time provided innovative and first of its kind e-mobility solutions. Glyd is one such flagship premium e-mobility solution to redefine the in-commute experience of daily commuters," M&M Managing Director Pawan Goenka said in a statement.

India has seen a boom of mobility startups and services, led by the successful example of Ola. Earlier Ola had also experimented with electric vehicles in Nagpur in partnership with Mahindra to build an electric mobility system, but the idea didn’t make an impact with drivers even returning vehicles.. Ola now has a new target of having one million EVs in its fleet by 2021.

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