- Uber drivers are now more concerned about charging than they are the cost of an EV.
- The rideshare company hired Tesla’s former head of charging infrastructure to fix the problem.
- Previous pilot programs from Uber has shown that the investment works—and with 60% more EV drivers on the platform, it’s desperately needed.
EVs are finally getting cheap enough for the masses to buy in. Sure, the average transaction price of a new EV is up, but used EVs are hitting a sweet spot where folks, especially gig drivers, aren’t so concerned about purchase price anymore. There’s just one concern that people still seem to have: plugging in.
Uber says that after years of price anxiety chased its drivers away from battery-electric cars, that era of concern is officially no longer the biggest pain point. A new survey of Uber drivers has officially placed access to chargers as the biggest EV-related concern of those driving on the platform—and they’re not necessarily talking just about public charging, either.
Photo by: Lucid Motors
Right now, only about a third of Uber’s EV drivers in the U.S. has access to charging at home. That seems like a pretty significant shortfall, right? Especially when you consider that the vast majority of EV charging is done at home. Research shows that 64% of Americans live within two miles of an EV charger, though it’s unclear how many of those are DC fast chargers, and how many are freely accessible, not behind paywalls like paid parking garages.
(Americans should consider themselves lucky because in the UK, just 27% have access to home charging, followed by a dismal 13% in the Netherlands.)
You can see how things can easily get muddy when you own an EV but have no access to home charging. Imagine living in an apartment, spending all day driving, and then not being able to plug-in at home because installing an EV charger isn’t feasible or even possible.
Uber is pivoting hard to fix that problem. In fact, it’s hired Rebecca Tinucci to spearhead it. Tinucci was the head of the Supercharging team that Tesla purged without warning last year. Her new job at Uber? Fix the mess, and do it quickly.
According to Bloomberg, she’s well on the way to doing exactly that:
Nine months into the job, she’s brokered a partnership the company expects will improve charging access for 55,000 drivers in London, Boston and Phoenix, and is rolling out a tool to help 40 cities decide on where to locate their next public plugs.
“We’ve got to get to work,” Tinucci said in an interview. “As comfortable as I am in the charging space, I fully recognize how difficult it is to do charging well.”
Realistically, Uber drivers are prime customers for charging networks. They’re frequent drivers that rack up high mileage with repeat patterns, meaning that where they drive, charge, and park is relatively predictable.
Uber says that there’s now 230,000 EV drivers on its platform worldwide, which is an astounding 60% increase from early 2024. It’s no wonder why charging anxiety is now the number one concern instead of EV cost.
It also knows that investing in the infrastructure is going to work. Uber did something similar around three years ago. It invested $6.8 million (5 million GBP) into stuffing around EV 700 chargers into the ground around a borough in London where many of its drivers lived. Those chargers now see twice as much use compared to the national average.
The ride-sharing platform is now going global with its plan and believes it will have around 60% of the needed coverage area on its radar. For everything else, Uber has already created a tool called the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Estimator that projects demand for EV chargers its drivers need.
Now, the company finds itself in a race against robotaxis. Uber recently became a partner with Waymo rather than invest in autonomy itself, but since the self-driving tech is still fresh, it needs to prop up its existing assets first: The drivers that make its service function.