More than 7,500 new electric Uber and Lyft vehicles have been approved by NYC’s Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC), according to data from a lawsuit brought by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA). The push to transition the city’s entire for-hire vehicle (FHV) fleet to either electric or wheelchair accessible vehicles by 2030 is part of its Green Rides initiative, which was launched in October.
The city’s TLC-licensed FHV fleet hit 10,090 EVs by mid-February, or 12% of app-hail vehicles. There were still 2,224 applications left to process, the TLC added.
The city capped the number of TLC-licensed vehicles in its FHV fleet in 2018, when then-Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council initiated a pause to address congestion and market saturation. The Adams administration lifted the cap last fall under the Green Rides Initiative – a plan that was met with a suit from the NYTWA, which argued that the TLC didn’t have the legal authority to unilaterally change the rule. The NYTWA says an influx of EVs with TLC plates will saturate the market, hurting existing app-hail and yellow taxicab drivers.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Machelle Sweeting ordered a temporary stop to new licenses in November, as the suit worked its way through the court. A five-day grace period was granted for those who already purchased an EV. Sweeting said in February she would wait for the TLC to issue its annual report on the FHV market, due by March, before making further rulings in the case.
While TLC Commissioner David Do said he hoped to have 5% of all app-based hails served by electric or wheelchair-accessible vehicles by the end of 2024, the agency seems poised to meet its December 2025 goal of converting 15%.
“We’ve seen an increase from about 40 to 50 public charging sessions per day [in October] to now 300 to 400 public sessions per day,” said Bobby Familiar, a spokesman for Revel, which maintains public EV fast-charging stations in the city.
Source: New York Daily News
