At the State of City address earlier this week, Mayor Eric Adams announced an ambitious proposal for the Taxi and Limousine Commission to require app giants Uber and Lyft to go electric by the end of 2030 without new costs for individual drivers.
What Adams left out was Uber and Lyft would be responsible for making sure app drivers, who own their own cars or rent, are saved the high upfront costs for switching to electric vehicles, according to an administration official.
When NY1 asked Arifa Tirmizi, an Uber driver who rents a gas-powered Honda and is an organizer with the Independent Drivers Guild, said the idea sounds good, but wonders what financial help she and her fellow drivers will get.
What You Need To Know
- Mayor Eric Adams said the Taxi and Limousine Commission will require an all-electric for-hire vehicle fleet by 2030
- Adams said this would be no cost to drivers, but an administration official told NY1 it would be Uber and Lyft’s responsibility to deal with that
- App drivers own their own cars or rent them to make Uber and Lyft trip
“Are we gonna get any incentives? Are we gonna get any tax breaks? Are there going to be any moratoriums, anything? We don’t have any information on that,” she said.
Tirmizi said she wondered where drivers will charge up.
“That’s gonna be more than 100,000 drivers. Are they gonna have that many sufficient chargers available for the drivers to go charge their cars?” Tirmizi said.
According to an administration official, the TLC will layout benchmarks, requiring a certain percentage of miles traveled be done in an electric car — ultimately reaching 100% by 2030.
Representatives for Uber and Lyft say the companies support the mayor’s goal for an electric fleet, but when asked by NY1 whether these companies would spare drivers the cost of converting to an electric vehicle, Lyft did not respond.
An Uber spokesman said that the company supports an increase in the minimum wage, which accounts for new expenses.
Tirmizi counters the upcoming minimum wage increase is not enough to make up for all the inflationary expenses. She said this shouldn’t be expected to fork that over to pay for Adams’ environmental goals.
“It should be Uber. You know who regulates Uber? The city does, the TLC does,” Tirmizi said. “So they should actually come after Uber or Lyft to actually emphasize this.”
Christopher Lynn, former Taxi and Limousine Commission chairman, said the expense should fall on the app companies.
“You can make them do it. They only do it if it’s at the point of a pitchfork,” Lynn said. “In other words, if they have no alternative, they’ll do it.”
The TLC plans to have a proposed rule out by early March.