New York City will require Uber and Lyft to go 100 percent electric by 2030 | Hacker News Reader

New York City will require Uber and Lyft to go 100 percent electric by 2030

theverge.com

19 pointsturtlegrids46 comments

Great news. Minimizing the amount of street-level pollution will make these walkable cities more pleasant for pedestrians. Reduced noise pollution is another side benefit. Hoping to see a similar effort in SF. Hate walking near NoPa/GGP with all the traffic passing by the Panhandle area.

you really think this will make a different? Last time I was in NYC it didn't seem like all that many, and the worst offenders were not likely uber/lyft (such as large construction trucks/equipment, etc).

Most emissions from modern vehicles these days comes from things like tire dust rather than tailpipe. What would be best for local street level pollution would probably be something like a lightweight rickshaw over a multiton EV.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyre...

Is that why the air is so bad in Mexico City and Los Angeles?

Remember during Covid when the sky’s turned blue in LA?

You’ve got to be careful on the Internet, people sort of just make it up as they go.

http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/eh/safety/criteria-air-poll...

But I do agree, more mass transit and fewer cars would be better.

The air really isn't that bad in LA most days, its improved substantially in recent decades but the meme of LA smog takes longer to die I guess. The geography of the place sometimes forms an inversion layer however, and on those days air quality is worse. Right now in particular, the air is almost perfect (1). It's still a farcry from living near a lot of industrialized agriculture in terms of aqi, or out in the great plains where you have ag then also west coast wildfire smoke tends to blow up and over the rockies and settle down. I can't speak for mexico city but I know they also have a similar inversion layer effect.

https://map.purpleair.com/1/mAQI/a10/p604800/cC0#10.12/34.06...

Looks good right now. LA still vies for the worst air pollution in the country.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution_in_the_United_...

https://www.lung.org/research/sota/city-rankings/most-pollut...

Depends on where you put the probe in LA honestly. Downwind of the airport or the port are a different story than against the coast where there's almost always a prevailing wind blowing stuff inland. There are also hillside neighborhoods high enough were you can end up above the inversion layer sometimes. You look at some of the top hits of that list you see Bakersfield, Fresno, and Sacramento, all a fraction of the size of LA but they get such bad air from all the agriculture happening in the central valley.

How about trucks that literally emit black smoke? Plenty of them in NYC

Those of course emit a lot more tailpipe emissions, but they aren't running rideshare either. If you have a consumer gas car with efi and a cat, the tailpipe is probably pretty benign compared to something from the 70s.

Do any cities in America ban older vehicles? It's common in European cities.

For example in Copenhagen buses and lorries must be at most 8 years old. The fine is €1700.

https://urbanaccessregulations.eu/countries-mainmenu-147/den...

No, but in some cities or states older vehicles must pass smog inspections.

Why would this not be required for non-rideshare taxis? That seems odd.

It seems like an awkward rephrasing of an awkwardly-worded statement:

> Build on efforts to electrify the city vehicle fleet by requiring the 100,000-plus high-volume for-hire vehicles to do the same — requiring them, with the support of Uber and Lyft, to be zero-emissions by 2030, with no new costs for individual drivers;

[1]: https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/063-23/mayor-ad...

Here’s a quote from the city page “Today, we are announcing that Uber and Lyft will be required to have a zero-emissions fleet by 2030”

Unless they are purposely being obtuse it seems like they aren’t requiring taxis.

They should probably also have an entry fee for every vehicle with a tailpipe starting 2030. The pollution (and engine noise!) in NYC is a real quality of life issue.

New York city will quietly drop this requirement some time in the next 6 years.

We'll see if there's enough availability of economical EVs by then. Plus the charging infrastructure.

Is there currently an EV that would be economical to operate as an Uber/Lyft/taxi? The Prius, very popular with drivers, seems to sell for MSRP $28k, and pretty much all the Ubers I get are 100k miles or more. I don't think there's a modern EV that sells for much below $40k? And certainly there is no used market with lots of reliable 100k mile vehicles yet.

For comparison, the last Uber driver I talked to had bought his Prius for $5k or so at 155k miles, and had since put 80k miles on it. The bulk of the ride sharing fleet seems to hover around this level. If EVs ever get that cheap (and I'm not sure they will), I doubt it'll be in 7 years.

Lots of Model 3s and Ys in taxi service already, and the fuel and maintenance savings offset the higher vehicle cost rapidly. Regulation simply encourages the transition along to internalize the pollution externalities.

NYC has a payment floor for rideshare drivers, so the revenue should be there to cover the equipment cost. The difficulty level is based on what rideshare companies can get away with paying drivers; if you mandate EVs, you need to also mandate a minimum payment to drivers to cover these costs. Rideshare services can then decide how to balance those costs between charging customers more and their profits.

https://insideevs.com/news/580066/tesla-model-y-joins-gravit...

https://electrek.co/2021/07/26/revel-fleet-50-tesla-model-y-...

They should regulate based on the vehicles mass versus its fuel type if they want to make a dent on local air pollution. Tire dust alone contributes 2000x the particulate emissions as the tailpipe.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/03/car-tyre...

Tire dust isn’t contributing to climate change, and air pollution from fossil fuel combustion is a known contributor to reduced life expectancy.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/06/14/air-pollution-takes-2-ye...

> Air pollution, which is primarily the result of burning fossil fuels, takes 2.2 years of the global life expectancy for each person, according to a new report out Tuesday from the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC).

> For comparison, that's a smidge more the decline in average life expectancy caused by smoking, more than three times that of alcohol use and unsafe water, six times that of HIV/AIDS, and 89 times that of conflict and terrorism.

Light vehicles aren’t going away (although more mass transit and cycling infra is always welcome), so requiring them be EVs is an improvement. We can then continue on to solve for tire pollution.

I'm not denying that burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change. I'm arguing that in terms of peoples personal vehicles, the vast majority of particulate polution (3 orders of magnitude more) comes from the tire dust rather than the tailpipe. Tire dust is basically microplastics. It gets into your lungs and sticks around, and is also associated with reduced life expectancy and poor health. It's a significant source of PM2.5, which is estimated to be responsible for 95% of the global public health impact from air pollution. It also of course damages ecosystems when it runs off into our watersheds.

https://jalopnik.com/tire-dust-is-the-ddt-of-our-generation-...

That's true that taking a vehicle and replacing it with an EV makes a lot of sense and would reduce pollution, but to me that depends on them being equal weights. Usually EVs are substantially heavier than equivalent ICE cars, so this would mean we trade one form of emissions (less tailpipe emissions) for another (more tire dust). I'm not sure if that would pencil out to be overall better, considering the tailpipe emissions from a modern (last 25 years we will call it) are responsible for so little of the particulate pollution to begin with, and adding on another 1000lbs to a given car frame represents a massive proportional increase in weight. I wonder if larger cars mean wider or larger tires, and what that might do for particulate generation as well?

Maybe one solution is to have "urban cars" running off of powered catenaries and very small batteries, rather than larger and heavier battery packs, almost like a trollybus.

> larger cars

And super torquey cars! 0-60 in 2 seconds!

Yeah, that will peel off some rubber

Is that a real problem, though? The fuel costs alone are probably enough to convince people to not offer taxi/rideshare services in Hummers (or whatever).

It sure is, tire dust is no good for your lungs or for your water sheds. You are right which is why the prius is the most common car used by rideshare drivers today.

You are sure worried about tire dust. Do you work for big oil?

No, I just would prefer we invest in substantiate changes to our urban form like adding more transit and bike infrastructure, than doubling down on the car and all its ills which aren't resolved by fuel choice alone.

What do you think tire dust is made of? lol

Do you work for Big Unreliable Energy & Big Luxury Only Unaffordable EV?

If the guardian were right about that, we would have to replace car tires every 10,000 miles.

I do see a lot of Model 3s, that's true. One time I got 3 3s in a single day :) Drivers seem to generally like it, although 2 of the 3 had put up sun shades from the insides because the glass roof was heating the car up too much.

The Model 3 as shown on the website starts around $45k even after the recent price drops. That's a lot of money over a Prius to get back in fuel, and given how efficient light hybrids already are (the Model 3 weighs 600lbs more than the Prius, probably largely due to its batteries) I'm not sure there's much more in terms of fuel efficiency you can get.

Especially because the market clearing price for ride share cars doesn't seem to be new Priuses (Priae?), but those that only cost $5-10k used.

I have my doubts that EVs will ever get that cheap, old Teslas certainly don't seem to be currently.

> Priuses (Priae?)

Prii. According to one source anyway:

https://pressroom.toyota.com/toyota-announces-the-plural-of-...

The glass roof blocks heat fine. Most of the people who complain are first time car owners, who also why why new tires aren’t coveted by warranty.

These were Uber drivers who drive their cars all day.

Theoretically you could buy a very old EV and give it a new battery.

Given that batteries make up a large fraction of new EV prices, I'm not sure that helps the economics.

Yeah, that would be like buying a $5000 car and getting a new crate engine for $12000 from the manufacturer, then paying another $5000 to do the swap.

Of course there will be by 2030. People still don’t understand technology curves?

https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/8547/teslas-vehicle-deliv...

A 2012 tesla is still like $20000

https://www.ebay.com/sch/6001/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=2012+tes...

No such thing as unlimited exponential growth in the real world.

No one said we need unlimited exponential growth.

Then explain what you mean by "technology curve" that people "don't get"

I don't know if they would be appropriate for a taxi, but

Chevy Bolt, starts at $26,500:

https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/bolt-ev

Nissan Leaf, starts at $28,040:

https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/electric-cars/leaf.html

...that's before any tax credits.

Those are 2 of the oldest EVs, that's why I said "modern." These don't have great range and charge very slowly. I think they've both been updated a bit, so I hope they at least support modern DC fast charging now.

Looks like the LEAF still uses CHAdeMO, which is being phased out AFAIK. But its battery is so small that it still seems to give somewhat adequate charge times (45min to 80%).

The Bolt seems similar: slow charging system but tiny battery, which might be OK in city ride sharing use. And not sure anyone cares much for the size of an Uber, so might be fine? It's not like those old Priuses are amazingly comfortable or roomy or anything.

The Chevy Bolt is 259 mile range while Model 3 (SR, the economical one) is 272...

> city ride sharing use

is also 95% of ride sharing rides.

Certainly come a long way. When I first drove one, we struggled to make 100mi.

These could be enough for most ride sharing services, yea. We'll see, I haven't seen one used as an Uber. No Leafs, either.

Chevy Malibu starts at $25k, that's 2 or 3 classes bigger and nicer of a vehicle.

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