New York City will no longer be limiting the number of Uber, Lyft and other rideshare cars on the road — as long as the new cars are electric.
The lifting of restrictions on the number of Taxi and Limousine Commission license plates issued to drivers working for Lyft, Uber, or other rideshare companies comes as part of the Adams administration’s goal of a fully electric or wheelchair-accessible rideshare fleet by 2030.
“We are making history, making a big bold step toward the city’s electric future,” Mayor Adams said Wednesday at a joint press conference with TLC Commissioner David Do.
“We proposed this rule because our city and our world is slipping into a deeper climate crisis,” Do said.
Under the so-called “green rides” initiative, the city will gradually mandate that Uber and Lyft dispatch a greater percentage of electric vehicles until 2030, when every nonwheelchair-accessible rideshare ride will be required to be an EV.
The city’s rideshare fleet currently consists of about 78,000 cars, which require a TLC-issued plate to legally operate. Of those, only about 2,200 are electric vehicles, and just over 6,000 are wheelchair-accessible vehicles.
The TLC has been kept from issuing new plates due to a license plate pause instituted in 2018 by the City Council and then-Mayor Bill de Blasio. The pause sought to both ease congestion on the streets and protect the yellow taxi cab industry by limiting the amount of competing rideshare cars allowed to operate.
The TLC made an exception this year, offering up 1,000 additional EV plates in March. They were gone within minutes.
Under the rule change announced Wednesday, the limit is lifted, and any would-be rideshare driver with an electric vehicle can apply for a TLC plate starting Thursday, Do said.
As previously reported by the Daily News, an unintended consequence of the cap has been the proliferation of predatory leasing arrangements, in which drivers seeking to enter the rideshare business end up paying $400-$500 a week to lease TLC-plated vehicles.
Do said he hoped the new rule could put an end to that arrangement.
“Now [drivers] can own their own small business and then they can also have a pathway to the middle class,” he said.
“If you’re putting 300‑plus dollars toward a weekly lease, that’s money out of your pocket,” he added. “We want to put more money into driver’s pockets.”
But B’hairavi Desai, head of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents both rideshare and yellow taxi drivers, said the removal of the license plate cap would destroy drivers’ financial stability.
“They’re very unceremoniously destroying a vehicle cap that was put in place at a time when there were a lot of driver suicides,” Desai told The News Wednesday. “It’s shocking to me that they would just destroy something that was so critical.”
Desai said existing Uber and Lyft drivers would bear the brunt of the new policy, being forced to buy new, expensive EVs in order to compete with an unregulated influx of new EV drivers.
She also expressed concern that they city’s charging infrastructure would not grow as quickly as the EV rideshare fleet.
“Drivers will assume that there will be enough work and enough charging infrastructure if the TLC is telling drivers to buy EVs,” she said.
Brendan Sexton, president of the Independent Drivers Guild, voiced similar worries about the city’s preparedness for an EV fleet.
“We continue to have concerns over affordability and feasibility for drivers,” Sexton said in a statement.
“Before any mandates on Uber and Lyft drivers take effect, the city must ensure that there are enough charging stations with restrooms throughout the five boroughs – and that there will be no added costs for drivers, as the mayor promised,” he added.
The IDG chief welcomed the lifting of the license plate cap, but his union has long called on the city to limit the number of rideshare drivers licenses issued by the TLC.
Do said Wednesday that the TLC was trying to move gradually toward its electrification goals.
“No rideshare vehicle and owner will be required to run out and buy an EV or wheelchair accessible vehicle tomorrow, next week or even next month,” he said.
The city intends to have electric and accessible trips constitute 5% of all rideshare hails by the end of 2024, though the commission intends to review and amend the rules if charging infrastructure isn’t up to snuff, a TLC spokesman said.
