Uber Is Expanding EV Rides, Commits to an EV-Only Fleet by 2030
The Comfort Electric service provided by Uber has been expanded to 24 other cities in the United States and Vancouver, B.C., Canada, from California. The service, offered by the Uber app, gives its users the opportunity to request electric vehicles over conventional gas-powered vehicles.
The Comfort Electric service is different from Uber Green as it requires the vehicles in its use to be fully electric, as opposed to Uber Green which allows both hybrids and electric vehicles. Brands like Polestar, Tesla, and the Ford Mustang Mach-E have been chosen by Uber as the premium EVs that will be available on the Comfort Electric service.
We ran a test, by taking a weekday trip between two locations in Central San Francisco, to gauge Comfort Electric’s prices on the menu of different Uber services.
As it turns out, the Comfort Electric option was the third cheapest option, costing $26.72, over $10 more than the other EV option, Uber Green, which was priced at $15.71. A normal UberX journey costs $15.93, while the most expensive choice, an Uber Black SUV, costs $48.95 for the same route.
In 2020, the company announced that it would fund a sum of $800 million to help drivers transition to EVs by 2025. This, along with the expansion of its green services (Uber Green and Comfort Electric) fits into the company’s goal of fully transitioning away from internal combustion by 2030, according to CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s statement in an interview with CBS News.
Khosrowshahi further adds that drivers that will not have transitioned by 2030 will be barred from working for the company. Drivers that will have transitioned and switched to the Comfort Electric service will get $1 more per ride, with an annual cap of $4000.
The Comfort Electric service has now been expanded to the following areas: Austin, Atlanta, Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, Charlotte, Connecticut, Denver, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, the suburbs of NYC, New Jersey, Portland, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Sacramento, San Francisco, Saint Louis, Seattle, Vancouver, and Washington D.C.