New York’s Uber and Lyft fleets electrifying faster than expected
At the beginning of 2023, New York Mayor Eric Adams announced that he wanted to oblige transport service providers such as Uber and Lyft to convert their fleets to electric cars or make them wheelchair accessible by 2030. In October 2023, this plan became a reality in the form of the ‘Green Rides’ programme. Since its introduction alone, more than 7,500 new electric Uber and Lyft vehicles have been approved by the Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) and hit the roads. This is according to a statistic that has now been cited in a court case. The background to this is that the city’s taxi industry fears for its business.
With the 7,532 additional electric vehicles, the US metropolis’ ride-hailing electric fleet will increase to 10,090 vehicles, which, according to media reports, corresponds to twelve per cent of the city’s Uber and Lyft fleet. What’s more, the Taxi and Limousine Commission is currently said to have 2,224 more applications to process. This means that the change is taking place faster than announced: For 2024, it is stipulated that five per cent of all “high-volume hire journeys”, including Uber and Lyft journeys, must be handled by zero-emission vehicles or wheelchair-accessible vehicles. This quota is to rise to 15 per cent in 2025 and 25 per cent in 2026. In subsequent years, the quota is planned to increase by 20 per cent each year – up to 100 per cent in 2030.
According to information from January 2023, the regulation affects more than 100,000 vehicles. One thing is clear: the regulation is forcing smaller providers in particular to move, as the two industry giants Uber and Lyft have already planned to switch to all-electric fleets by 2030. The new figures on the current number of electric ride-hailing vehicles in New York City come from a court hearing in connection with a lawsuit filed by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. The Alliance is pushing for a cap to be reintroduced for ridesharing cars in the city. A cap had been in place since 2018, but was lifted in the autumn as part of the ‘Green Rides’ launch.
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