New York-based Revel started as an all-Tesla, all-employee ride-hail service, but recently decided to transition to a “gig worker” model similar to Lyft and Uber. The company says it initially started with employee drivers to help guarantee utilization of its burgeoning charging infrastructure projects.
According to Haley Rubinson, vice president of corporate affairs at Revel, drivers were initially attracted to the platform because they didn’t want to deal with the hassle of owning or renting their own vehicles, buying insurance, and managing their own expenses. But now, Rubinson says, Revel is having trouble recruiting drivers, and is simply being “responsive to what the industry is telling us.”
“The reason we ran this pilot in the first place was just increasing feedback from our driver pool, as well as in our recruitment efforts,” Rubinson said. “The leading reason people didn’t want to join Revel was the lack of flexibility.”
This is not the first time the company has made big changes. The BlackRock-backed startup initially launched in 2018 as a dockless e-moped sharing service, but dropped the moped-sharing business in 2023. The company now operates multiple electric vehicle (EV) charging stations across the five boroughs.
Revel’s latest move to transition its employee drivers to independent contractors came after the company successfully piloted the model in late February with 100 Revel drivers and has since brought on 100 more. In an email sent to employees that TechCrunch has viewed and Bloomberg first reported on, Keith Williams, vice president of ride-share operations, said that four out of the five drivers who piloted the gig worker model would recommend the program.
The question of flexibility has been at the heart of the debate over whether ride-hail drivers should be classified as gig workers or employees. If salaried employees are in fact asking to be made into contractors, Revel’s switch could lend credibility to arguments made by companies across the country fighting to maintain their current gig worker models.
Current drivers on Revel’s payroll will have the option of staying on as independent contractors after September 12, when the switch will take effect. Drivers can sign up to rent from Revel’s fleet of Teslas for $10 per hour, which includes auto liability insurance, vehicle cleaning and maintenance and a full day of battery charging. In 2025, Revel will open up the platform to drivers with their own EVs, giving the startup an asset-light way to grow the business.
The increased fleets may also help Revel with its long-term goal – EV charging infrastructure. In 2022, Frank Reig, Revel’s CEO, told TechCrunch that over 90% of its charging hub utilization came from Revel’s own ride-hail fleet. That number has since shifted to about 50% as EV adoption increases, according to Robert Familiar, Revel’s senior corporate affairs manager.
Revel has three active EV charging hubs in NYC — two in Brooklyn (Bed Stuy and South Williamsburg) and one in Long Island City, Queens. The company aims to launch another hub this summer at Pier 36 in Lower Manhattan, and has plans to launch three more: One near LaGuardia Airport; another in Maspeth, Queens, that’ll be the largest site with 60 plugs; and another in the Bronx.
Source: Tech Crunch
