Since Uber and Lyft burst onto the scene a decade ago, the companies have established a reputation for dodging government regulations. Now, California is working on first-of-their-kind rules to limit emissions from ride-hail vehicles, which could force the companies to get about one-third of their drivers into electric vehicles by the end of 2030. To which the ride-hail companies say (with some qualifications): Bring it on.
The state’s goal is ambitious, to put it lightly. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has proposed requiring that 60 percent of miles traveled by ride-hail passengers be in electric vehicles by 2030. In 2018, only about 1 percent of those miles were in electric vehicles. California is the nation’s top market for electric vehicles, but less than one in 10 cars sold in 2019 can plug in.
To hit that 60 percent target, the air board estimates that one-third of ride-hail vehicles will have to be electric, and that the companies will need to push their highest-mileage drivers to switch to EVs. The companies would also have to bring back their shared pooling services, which have been suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic. Still, Lyft wants stricter, not looser rules. “We think that CARB should continue to be aggressive,” says Sam Arons, the company’s head of sustainability.
Earlier this year, Lyft pledged to electrify all of its drivers’ vehicles by 2030. That’s a challenge, because Lyft doesn’t own those vehicles; it casts itself as a tech-aided intermediary between small businesspeople (drivers) and people who want to purchase their services (riders). So it must convince drivers to buy electric vehicles, when the tech is still more expensive than gas-powered cars, and chargers still hard to come by. How to do that? A lot of government help—and money.
Uber has not made a similar commitment on electric vehicles. But a spokesperson says the company “looks forward to continuing to engage with CARB,” and that Uber “supports California’s Clean Miles Standard as a first-of-its-kind performance-driven standard.”
Electrifying more ride-hail vehicles could be a big deal for the state. “There’s a catalyst opportunity here, to have positive benefits in the market as a whole and not just for ride-hailing,” says
