Uber is going fully electric

Uber announced that all of it’s vehicles will go electric by 2030 in US, Canada and Europe and by 2040 in rest of the world. But rather than pay drivers directly to trade their gas-burning vehicles for electric ones, the company will impose an extra fee on trips completed in an electric vehicle to incentivize drivers to make the switch.

From today Uber is launching its “Uber Green” surcharge in 15 cities in the US and Canada. For a dollar extra, riders can specifically request a hybrid or electric vehicle. Drivers who use hybrid or electric vehicles to pick up passengers will get an extra 50 cents per ride, while drivers using specifically battery-electric vehicles get another dollar on top of that — for a total of $1.50 extra per ride.

This change means that Uber customers will have to pay slightly more for trips in hybrid or electric vehicles which Uber sees as a necessary cost to help speed the transition to a zero-emissions fleet. Uber will also spend $800 million of its own money to help “hundreds of thousands of drivers in the US, Canada, and Europe transition to battery EVs by 2025.”

Uber says it intends to partner with a variety of stakeholders — including automakers, car rental operators, electric vehicle charging companies, and others — in what is likely to be a massive effort to achieve its ambitious goal of a “fully zero-emissions platform by 2040.”

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