Uber strikes deal with Nissan to deploy 50 EVs in London
Mon 12 September 2016
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The ride-sharing service Uber has struck a deal with Nissan which means that users of the service will soon have the opportunity to ride in electric vehicles in London.
Uber said that by the end of September some of its drivers would make use of 50 fully-electric cars under a partnership deal with BYD and Nissan. The company said that the programme may be expanded next year.
Nissan said it has already supplied a fleet of 20 Leaf EVs to Uber for use in the UK.
Uber, which has faced opposition from established taxi companies across the world, said the electric vehicle program would help address London's air pollution problem, adding many Uber drivers already use lower emission hybrid cars. Such cars account for 60 percent of journeys organized via the app.
The company says that the initial plan for the 50 electric cars would be accompanied by a three-month study to look at the city's capacity to charge electric cars.
"A bigger roll out of fully electric cars needs a good network of charging points and the economics must add up for drivers too," Uber's UK regional General Manager Jo Bertram said (reported by Automotive News Europe).
Uber has contracted the Energy Saving Trust to “research the experience, driving patterns and economics of private hire drivers using electric cars, and the capacity of London’s current network of charging points to support these vehicles”.
Uber's investors include GV, formerly known as Google Ventures, and Goldman Sachs.
Uber is reported to be continuing its experiments with EVs; the company began a pilot using BYD E6s last year in Chicago, and has also run trials of EVs in South Africa and Portugal.
A third-party company called Evercar recently introduced a similar service in California, renting plug-in vehicles to drivers who work for Uber, Lyft and other transportation network companies.
Meanwhile, according to the Economist (
reported by LTT) Uber and other ride-hailing services will account for a quarter of all trips globally by 2030 as they increasingly provide jourmeys cheaper than car ownership.
The Economist pointed to Uber’s $70bn valuation as evidence investors expect it to not only shake up the $100bn world taxi market, but increasingly move into the $10 trillion market for global mobility. It quotes an estimate from the bank Morgan Stanley that in less than 15 years the 4% share of global trips will increase sixfold, including other firms such as Ola in India and Lyft in the US.
The Economist argues that Uber journeys are already cheaper than car ownership for 14% of people in US urban centres, and says Uber is pushing down costs further.
However, the LTT also reports that Uber acknowledges that the company lost $1.3bn or more in the first two quarters of 2016, that it is locked out of a number of European markets and faces the prospect of further battles with regulators if it becomes more dominant, and that its planned move into autonomous vehicles will mean it is no longer 'asset light,' lowering profit margins.
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