Uber Wants Drivers With Electric Cars, But Incentives Not Significant

A handful of major U.S. cities may soon have more access to being chauffeured in electric cars. Ride-sharing app giant Uber announced a new initiative to financially incentivize its fleet of drivers to take passengers to and fro in electric vehicles.

Uber outlined the plan Tuesday through a company blog post called “Electrifying our network.” The San Francisco-based company launched its “EV Champions” program on the same day, promising at least 5 million electric rides for Uber passengers throughout the next year.

Basically, Uber will offer drivers a little bit of money if they drive people around seven U.S. cities in either hybrids or fully battery-powered electric vehicles. Austin, Los Angeles, Montreal, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle will be the first cities to have the program.

The catch is that EV Champions does not actually give much of a payout to its champions. The level of compensation changes from city to city, with Los Angeles electric Uber drivers getting no extra money at all for their efforts. If a driver successfully drops a customer off at their destination in a clean energy vehicle, they will get a mere $1 for it.

That only applies to San Diego, San Francisco and Pittsburgh at the moment, the Los Angeles Times reported. There is an upper limit on it in those cities, too. Uber will only give electric drivers a maximum of $20 extra per week for making green deliveries.

That means electric car owners looking to recoup the costs of their vehicles through Uber should probably find an alternate means of income. An MIT study published earlier this year found that Uber drivers, by and large, make paltry amounts of money by default.

Drivers who participate in EV Champions might not make much money, but they do get some other exclusive perks from Uber. For example, the Uber app will tell these drivers when an upcoming trip will take 30 minutes or longer, just in case those drivers are running low on electric battery.

Market trends indicate electric car usage will steadily rise over the next several years, with one study suggesting one in six cars sold in 2025 will be electric. Electric car giant Tesla, which seeks to bring mass-produced and affordable electric cars to the market, recently announced significant layoffs.