Uber Black is the “OG” ride — back when Uber launched its beta in May 2010, you could book a luxury black cab.. This model changed in April ‘13 when ride-sharing (i.e. non-taxi cabs) became the norm…
Now, regarding Uber Black in India:
(1) In Sept ‘24, Uber India re-launched Uber Black — starting with Mumbai.
(2) Back in 2013, when Uber launched in India, Uber Black was the initial product but in a slightly different format → it meant luxury sedans from Mercedes, Audi and BMW which were available to book.
(3) Uber Black is offered by Uber’s fleet partners (e.g. Everest Fleets where it is an investor) i.e. it is a managed fleet services and not a DCO (driver cum owner) model like the regular Ubers
(4) Uber India describes this as the “ business class of back seats” → you get a “quiet mode” option, temperature control etc from your mobile phone
(5) The Uber Black fleet consists of SUVs and MUVs from Toyota and MG. You can also book rentals (fixed hour / fixed distance).
💡Uber India has been tacking the cancellation / quality problem by slowing shifting from the DCO model to the managed fleet model — Uber Black is the 2nd instance, Uber Green is the 1st instance..
Note: Uber Black & Uber Green are examples of “managed fleets” because these 3rd party fleet operators work very closely with Uber. From my experience testing Uber Black: The way I see it → Uber Green == BluSmart, Uber Black == Blusmart Premium.
🧠The choice of vehicles is also smart → SUVs tend to have more boot space (this was a major criticism of BluSmart in early 2023 — until they rolled out the MGs). This will let Uber capture some wallet share of the lucrative airport commute market.
One could say this is the result competition from BluSmart, Shoffr & other EV fleets etc — but it is admirable to see a company at Uber’s scale respond to ground realities.
➡️ It is fascinating to see how in the past ~3 years, mobility in India is slowing moving away from “marketplace” model & closer to the “OG Meeru model” i.e. managed fleets.
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