Los Angeles Is Considering Make Uber and Lyft Go All-Electric (electrek.co) 108
"The Financial Times is reporting that Los Angeles may now force Uber and Lyft to use electric cars," reports Electrek:
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said, "We have the power to regulate car share. We can mandate and are looking closely at mandating that any of those vehicles in the future be electric...."
Mayor Garcetti's concept to require rideshare services to use EVs has not yet moved beyond the idea phase. But the Los Angeles city council is considering how to exert more control over rideshare services, including by creating a driver-registration program. The state's Public Utilities Commission currently regulates ride-hailing services in California.
Implementing the EV policy for Uber and Lyft drivers could be tricky. Most drivers own their vehicles. Regardless, Mayor Garcetti is seeking any means to use city powers to mitigate climate change. He said:
"Local actors, no matter who is in power, are the most critical elements of whether or not we win the fight against climate change. It is local governments and regional governments that regulate or directly control building codes, transportation networks, and electricity generation, which together are 80% of our emissions."
Mayor Garcetti's concept to require rideshare services to use EVs has not yet moved beyond the idea phase. But the Los Angeles city council is considering how to exert more control over rideshare services, including by creating a driver-registration program. The state's Public Utilities Commission currently regulates ride-hailing services in California.
Implementing the EV policy for Uber and Lyft drivers could be tricky. Most drivers own their vehicles. Regardless, Mayor Garcetti is seeking any means to use city powers to mitigate climate change. He said:
"Local actors, no matter who is in power, are the most critical elements of whether or not we win the fight against climate change. It is local governments and regional governments that regulate or directly control building codes, transportation networks, and electricity generation, which together are 80% of our emissions."
lol (Score:2)
The future: $100 for a 5 mile fare.
Electric car operating cost (Score:3, Insightful)
Facts are troublesome when it comes to maintaining your prejudices I suppose.
Re: Electric car operating cost (Score:2)
Depreciation of their current vehicle and the cost of purchasing or leasing an EV are also facts.
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And that's why you announce the new policy ahead of time in a roadmap, so people can take it into account when buying a new car.
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That is, any vehicle used for public hire. Technically, that means you, if you accept a fiver "for petrol money" from a friend for giving them a lift. Also, of course, using
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I was referring to reducing the supply by 99%
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People driving Uber and Lyft are desperate for income and only likely do the job to keep up car payments, these are the last people who can afford to switch to an electric vehicle. Compulsory driver registration and the blocking of drivers with felonies, is sensible, especially sexual assault charges. That driver registration should be validated with a personal appearance and verification at a police station and mug shot and finger prints taken and this includes food delivery, especially food delivery. A lo
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>People driving Uber and Lyft are desperate for income
I've ridden in a Lyft where the driver was a millionaire. A retired former board member of a cad tools company.
I used to use their tools and so had a nice conversation about the relative merits of different versions of their board design software. He clearly was genuine because he knew all about it.
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is much lower than conventional car, and total cost of ownership is also lower. These factors only increase with a high-mileage use of the vehicle such as ride-share.
Facts are troublesome when it comes to maintaining your prejudices I suppose.
If this is true then why fuck it up with a government mandate for EV use?
I was always told that the point of the government mandates was to "prime the pump" of infrastructure for EVs so that some day they'd be cheaper to own than the petroleum burners. Well, you won. You got what you wanted. Why fuck this up with government mandates that will only drive up prices with artificial demand?
How can government mandates drive up prices? This forces people to buy in when they would not otherwise. This forces p
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To contribute to successfully combatting global warming, we're going to need a situation where demand for EVs rapidly becomes > 50% (closer to 100%) of all demand for vehicles.
In that context, the small artificial demand you're speaking of is in the noise.
A large and increasing carbon tax (going back to everyone as a dividend) might be enough to stoke that demand.
EVs are much simpler machines, with many fewer parts, than ICE vehicles, and, save for the battery cost, which is rapidly fa
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In that context, the small artificial demand you're speaking of is in the noise.
True, California mandating ride share services to use electric cars is in the noise. But how many of similar mandates will it take until it's not in the noise?
My point is that if there is a mandate for electric vehicles that exceeds natural demand then all car prices will rise. Part of what drives natural demand is the supply. This is a supply chain that goes way back, from the car itself, to the batteries, to the raw materials. There's a lot of people working on meeting existing demand for cobalt and l
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The legislators in California are not serious about anything other than appearing to be progressive. Actual outcome is irrelevant. Look at how they ( and specifically Garcetti, mentioned in this story) have handled the homeless issue in Los
Angeles. Many speeches and 500K per unit housing that doesn't work.
source: I've lived here for 50 years.
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BTW, WRT "troublesome facts":
https://www.marketwatch.com/st... [marketwatch.com]
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Mandating that ride-share be only electric, and also rapidly transitioning the entire electricity generation to zero-emission... all of these measures, large and small, are required, and in a hurry. Ask yourself why you are getting in the way of the needed changes.
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Another "troublesome fact", if California wanted to lower their CO2 emissions (and not just export them to other US states or to other nations) then they need nuclear power.
We have three choices, and only three choices.
- More global warming
- More nuclear power
- Lowered standard of living
People don't like lowering their standard of living. This may be the first time in a very long time where people are seeing their quality of life go down. We are already seeing people have a shorter expected lifespan. Cau
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I'm pretty sure California gets enough sunlight to pull off the solar power thing. You should spend your time getting angry about something actually true.
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Your assertion has very little basis in mathematically provable facts. 100% solar alone, without wind, nuclear, or anything else, is entirely possible to accomplish without even using a large fraction of commercial roof space. Battery efficiency is completely sufficient at this point, and will only improve going forward.
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Your assertion has very little basis in mathematically provable facts. 100% solar alone, without wind, nuclear, or anything else, is entirely possible to accomplish without even using a large fraction of commercial roof space. Battery efficiency is completely sufficient at this point, and will only improve going forward.
How much will that cost? How much raw material will that take?
Here's a few sources that will give you an idea.
http://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/2... [blogspot.com]
https://www.withouthotair.com/ [withouthotair.com]
http://www.roadmaptonowhere.co... [roadmaptonowhere.com]
If you want to see an environmental disaster in progress then look at how much mining for raw materials would be necessary for solar PV to provide all the energy we need.
We will never again be without nuclear fission power, it's simply too valuable to walk away from. Now, "never say never" is a thing so
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You've never heard of a transitional plan for anything, have you? Every change to you is a sweeping instantaneous apocalypse driven with no heed for logistical constraints whatsoever, isn't it? Just for that one glaring omission in your supposedly infallible logic the value of your opinion on this matter should be considered completely void.
Either that or you're just another shitty astro-turfing shill.
And no, I'm not going to do your homework. Figure out why you're not just wrong but also wrong-minded as
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You've never heard of a transitional plan for anything, have you? Every change to you is a sweeping instantaneous apocalypse driven with no heed for logistical constraints whatsoever, isn't it? Just for that one glaring omission in your supposedly infallible logic the value of your opinion on this matter should be considered completely void.
Huh? WTF are you talking about?
Either that or you're just another shitty astro-turfing shill.
I see, if someone is an advocate for nuclear power then they must be a paid shill but people that are advocates for wind and solar power are just right minded and informed. I could claim you have that backwards. There's a lot of money from government subsidies in wind and solar power. I know this because if anyone in the US Congress sneezes during a debate to end energy subsidies my mailbox fills up, from both sides, with fliers to call my elected representatives on this.
P
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See? This just proves you're a liar. I'm not even gonna bother reading all that. Maybe you think the extra text load gives you credibility, but it doesn't. You're stupid and this is all going to end very badly for you when they find out who paid you.
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Battery capacity is sufficient only for a cost equal to nuclear power.
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California both demands solar power on new homes adding to their costs AND wonders what the holdup is on building new homes.
The government is dysfunctional.
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Solar in California would only be sufficient if they installed battery capacity to match and that would cost more than nuclear power. The legislature was very careful to not allow that to happen when they mandated solar in new homes.
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And if you took all the money that would be spent on the nuclear reactors and spent it on solar and wind instead how many would be built.
People like to say Nuclear is the answer by pointing out cost per kWh but when you have high nuclear generation you have to turn the generator off during low periods driving up the cost per kWh.
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And if you took all the money that would be spent on the nuclear reactors and spent it on solar and wind instead how many would be built.
That's easy. If we took all the money that would be needed to provide the power needed for California and instead spent that on wind and solar power then California would be left with rolling blackouts.
People like to say Nuclear is the answer by pointing out cost per kWh but when you have high nuclear generation you have to turn the generator off during low periods driving up the cost per kWh.
Yes, that is true, which is why nobody is calling for a 100% nuclear power grid. Here's a nice thing about nuclear power that wind and solar power advocates seem to forget, while an excess of electrical generation capacity will force a nuclear power plant to throttle back we can increase there output when t
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Posting AC as to protect his identity tho i doubt he's a slashdot regular.
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What usually fails in a car that isn't crashed? The engine with its complex anti-pollution equipment, transmission, CV joints and other suspension bits. Brakes and tires wear out, lead-acid batteries have a lifespan of maybe eight years, but those aren't generally considered failures.
In an EV, the motor should last forever and has no pollution equipment. Batteries are still an open question, but look promising.
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Some Uber/Lyft drivers live in apartments or condos where there are not adequate (or any) charging facilities for electric cars.
As well, a serious Uber/Lyft driver may drive more than the range of an electric car in one day and then have to find a supercharger (which are not that prevalent in many areas) to continue their workday effectively.
And, of course, most Uber/Lyft drivers don't own electric cars and won't for some time.
Why just Uber and Lyft? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wait a second. Now you want all these taxi services to play by the same rules? What happened to Uber and Lyft not being taxi services so they should be treated differently?
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What happened to Uber and Lyft not being taxi services so they should be treated differently?
Many taxi drivers work as independent contractors, not employees.
Allowing Uber and Lyft to classify their drivers as contractors is treating them the same, not differently.
Re: Why just Uber and Lyft? (Score:1)
Many do.
Most don't.
When uber has 50% of their fleet as true employees, then we can talk.
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This would be closer to the city telling that contract taxi driver what kind of car they can buy for their own personal use.
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Taxi companies are some of the few entities actually more sleazy than Uber.
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Well, possibly this statement in the summary might explain it: "We have the power to regulate car share."
I don't know if California state law enables a locality to tell its taxi medallion holders they can't operate ICE vehicles, although presumably the same environmental concerns apply. Even if it did, it's politically different, since taxi companies are locally owned (often by the mob).
Re: Why just Uber and Lyft? (Score:2)
California is exceptional, it can do this. I was just driving down 101 going 3 mph for hours after they closed grapevine, staring at the palm trees and this guy next to me in a yellow Porsche.
There was this poster in school as a kid, depicted Ferraris and Porsches at a California beach mansion, the picture of success if you did good in school. Yet here was this guy, rolling down the same road in his Porsche at 3mph through the puddles of piss bottles people were pouring from their cars from being so trapped
Re: Why just Uber and Lyft? (Score:2)
It disturbs me greatly that I canâ(TM)t tell if your are being sarcastic or not.
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Why make California a separate country. It was stolen from Mexico as war booty and should just be returned to Mexico.
That would solve the immigration problem in one fell swoop. Of course, emigration would become a problem. Then the wall can be used to keep Americans in.
Re: Why just Uber and Lyft? (Score:1)
"Then the wall can be used to keep Americans in."
That's the whole purpose of the wall, isn't it? Freedom lost in 2001. We have become Stalin's Soviet Union.
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Why not make it french then? Or go back further, rebuild the Aztec pyramids whose rule was stolen from them by the evil europeans?
Of course you can't wear pants anymore, and slavery is legal.
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I argue that a city has NO right to regulate what sort of car a person is allowed to buy just because they might end up using it to drive for a ride share app. That is a huge and unreasonable burden to place on a private citizen.
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I was thinking the same thing. Should apply to buses, ambulances, police cars (including unmarked), fire engines, garbage trucks, utility vehicles, city-owned bucket trucks, those mammoth curbside bulk trash vehicles ...
It could get hairy.
Re: Why just Uber and Lyft? (Score:1)
Why stop there? Require all cars to be electric including those already on the road. When your current registration is up you can only renew with an electric vehicle. None of this hybrid shit either. And that includes everything, semis, bulldozers, motorcycles, atvs, light aircraft, lawnmowers, lead blowers, everything! The only thing that gets a temporary pass is commercial aircraft, they have two years to comply.
It is designed to damage them (Score:2)
Uber and Lyft drivers do not just drive to work. They drive all day for a living. But an electric car needs time to recharge. So they would need two cars to work effectively. And then need to get to a swapping station as part of their fares.
I reckon this is designed by the Taxi companies.
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Lunch time?
You have no idea. They go from job to job when jobs are available. Then they end up in some odd spot, a long way from base and chargers. Then 10 minutes later they might get another job.
"Lunch time" is a middle class concept.
Government's power to regulate (Score:2)
Has anyone asked Mr. Garcetti, how much Tesla stock he is holding?
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I can't believe anybody in their right mind would drive a Tesla for Uber.
Made me laugh too.
For every Tesla there will be half a dozen ten year old Leafs.
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And here in the real world in the upper midwest, I'm starting to see a handful of Tesla Model 3s with the local "green" cab company's logo on them. They were previously a mostly Prius based fleet, but now I'm seeing Model 3s with bike racks on the back.
Yep. Not even uber, this is a cab company which owns its own vehicles. In the upper midwest. Which has winter. And they're buying Teslas.
Either they have 0 business sense and are running their organization into the ground, or Teslas actually make financial se
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Taxi companies have been using Nissan Leafs since they came out. With next to no maintenance and fuel costs 1/5th of gas or less they make great business sense. Those original 24kWh cars made it over 200k miles before the rest of the vehicle needed replacing (being a taxi they get hammered).
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There's a very good chance when I call an Uber a Tesla will show up. Cab companies here absolutely love them and most cab companies moonlight on other ride sharing systems.
Great! (Score:4, Insightful)
So, I guess they solved all the other, real, problems, and have time to spend on quasi-problems, that, no matter if you believe in it or not, will not solve a damn thing? I guess that's good news.
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The underlying issue is far too many mile-hours driven per capita, not ICE. That is the most important problem. It is a huge waste of energy regardless.
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And, yes, on top of that, Los Angeles has many other pressing issues as well, not just climate change.
Re: Great! (Score:3)
Re: Great! (Score:1)
In fairness, Los Angeles is currently digging on the largest subway building project in the country. It is already the second largest metro rail system (by route length), after NYC (which has more than double LA's current route-miles, and vastly higher ridership).
Surface traffic in LA is insufferable. But the people of that city and their political leaders get it. They have a long way to go, but they _are_ working to fix the problem.
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no, they just continually want to look like they're working to fix problems.
Nothing ever actually gets fixed.
It's hollywood in politics.
Re: Great! (Score:1)
Your say that, yet the LA metro gets bigger every year. I don't doubt there's plenty of corruption and political grandstanding. But _something_ appears to be working right.
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https://www.marketwatch.com/st... [marketwatch.com]
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Huh? Switching to EVs solves the most important problem there is.
So would switching to nuclear power, but California isn't doing that. These cars need to be charged up from something, and California still gets a lot of electricity from natural gas.
What would also help is some onshore wind, geothermal, and hydro. California is relying too much on solar power and they are only digging in deeper. If they keep on this path then they will drive the grid to be unstable on a regular basis. Solar power is unreliable, and too much of it will be bad for them.
Maybe they can add
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Huh? Switching to EVs solves the most important problem there is.
"Solves" is a strong term. Switching ride-sharing to EVs isn't even a drop in the bucket, it's a light misting with an atomizer.
If California or LA wanted to do anything substantial about climate change, we/they'd start advocating for fracking, building more houses closer to jobs, and/or building nuclear power plants.
smog abatement fee (Score:5, Interesting)
One way to slightly more humanely introduce this sensible measure would be to add a considerable ICE vehicle surcharge to the ride-share license fee, and have a pre-set schedule for increasing that fee each year over a 10 year period. You could also slightly reduce the base license fee. So this would incent more rapid conversion of the fleet to EVs, while giving drivers a number of years to change over to an EV, by which time EV upfront purchas/leasing costs will be more affordable as battery costs decline.
Re: smog abatement fee (Score:2)
7 minutes later it seems you calmed down and put forth a good idea, thank you!
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You're basically describing a carbon tax. That isn't a criticism.
Re: smog abatement fee (Score:1)
Comrade, the GP's idea may or may not be the correct thing to do - it sounds like a good idea to me - but it surely is not communist. Strongly suggest you read some Marx & Lenin so you know what you're talking about next time.
Insanity (Score:2)
If the goal of this legislation is to put the car sharing companies out of business in California then it will likely succeed. People will have to go back to using taxis.
Re: Insanity (Score:1)
"People will have to go back to using taxis."
Which of course will be both stupidly expensive and unavailable in most areas of LA. Hurrah for a return to drunk driving! Winning!
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I don't have the figures on Uber/Lfyt drivers but I would guess that a healthy majority are not homeowners.
And my guess is the intersection of the set of people who drive for ride-sharing and the set of people who can afford an EV is the null set. Seriously, EVs, especially ones with enough range to make driving-for-hire reasonable, are expensive. If you can afford one of those, you're not gigging on the side.
If the goal of this legislation is to put the car sharing companies out of business in California then it will likely succeed. People will have to go back to using taxis.
(A nit: LA, not all of California. Yet.)
No doubt that's the actual goal. But I don't think people will "go back" to taxis because the weren't using them in the first place. They'll go back to driving themse
Homeowners (Score:1)
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Garcetti is clearly suffering the effects (Score:1)
From smoking too much weed.
Mandate that city-owned vehicles be electric (Score:2)
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when the city ICE vehicles age out.
LOL. Democrats are real good at spending other people's money.
History inthe making (Score:2)
The comments so far have been both for and against the idea, and many of them are thoughtful insightful cogent concepts - on both sides.
It just goes to show that there are meritorious points of view from different angles.
Stop to think about it - this is history in the making.
Society is changing.
This is new economy and gig economy versus old and centralized economy.
This is old energy and technology versus new technology that either leverages new tech for economy or convenience versus leveraging or managing n
This is to screw Uber and Lyft (Score:2)
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as Uber and Lyft are making congestion a lot worse in most cities, its a great idea. All commercial transport should be driven towards EV as soon as possible.
Why commercial and not all transportation? A mile driven is a mile driven.
It was inevitable (Score:2)
Summary: How can we kick a competitor to one of our best, long-term kickback schemes, and look like heroes for doing it?
Follow the money.
How to address the real problem (Score:1)
1. Range anxiety - They want to be able to drive around all day an not worry about will they be able to keep their vehicles fueled and ready to go. Tesla has banned rideshare and taxi drivers from using the public supercharging network. The rideshare drivers I have talked to flat out rejected the idea of a Tesla du
Orthogonal Economics 101 (Score:2)
Toyota PRIUS models dominate the ranks of experienced " app hail" drivers for the reason that their battery systems appear on the Used Car market at discount AND the ROI operating costs are most efficient.
DOVETAILing polity into " app hail" mix is an exercise in abstraction above the operating plane for City of Los Angeles politicians. I'd suggest fleet policy discussions with FORD, TOYOTA, NISSAN,etc... to address the incentive required to de-ICE app hail in the U.S. overtime.
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What gives them the right? (Score:2)
They might have the authority to impose an E
Re: California Commies (Score:2)
Tye âmarketâ(TM) will decide this. People will either but electric cars for ride share or they wonâ(TM)t.
Itâ(TM)s important to recognize that âthe marketâ(TM) operates in a semi-darwinian manner in the context of its environment, which is defined by federal, state and local government laws and regulations ( and their non US equivalents ).