Uber rises as a fierce challenger to Didi Kuaidi as it sees rapid expansion in China. (Photo : Reuters)
Transportation company Uber, a fleet company in Wuhan, and the Guangzhou Automobile brand have teamed up in an effort to launch a new green campaign.
According to Tech in Asia, the new initiative, which is to be called "UberGreen," will be rolled out to consumers sometime this week.
A fleet of 10 hybrid cars will be hitting Wuhan city streets in an effort to gather data on how its UberGreen would be received by Chinese consumers.
Uber will use Guangzhou Automobile's hybrid electrical car, the Trumpchi GA5 REV. The vehicle boasts a 1.0-liter, 45-kW petrol engine allied with a 31-kW electric motor and a battery pack.
The Trumpchi can cover a distance of 80 kilometers while running on electric mode, but with little electrical power, the car will most probably be running in hybrid mode through most of its drives.
Uber will face competition, however, as it's not the only transportation company that offers environment-friendly rides. Wuhan already unveiled a similar initiative in April, and the city's fleet of over a thousand electric taxes and Tesla S85 sedans is much larger than UberGreen.
Based in San Francisco, California, Uber has increased its global operations in the recent years. As of March 2015, Uber has been operative in 55 countries and over 200 cities across the globe. The transportation network company came to China in Aug. 2013 and now operates in nine cities throughout mainland China.
Other services provided by Uber include UberX and People's Uber.
Recently, some of Uber's operations worldwide have been subjected to police raids.
