Uber has abandoned its promise to have electric cars in every major city in the UK, US and Europe by 2030, after its chief executive warned that drivers, consumers and governments are turning their backs on electric cars.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said the company’s long-term commitment to switch to fully electric fleets by the end of the decade was “impossible”.
It is the first time Uber has publicly admitted it will miss the target, which was set for 2020 and was in line with Labour’s wider aims to accelerate the transition to petrol and diesel cars.
“Our EV goal is to be all-electric by 2030, that’s not going to happen based on everything that’s going on in society,” Khosrowshahi said. He also added that although Uber will continue to increase the number of electric vehicles in its territory, external conditions have made the original pledge impossible.
Uber previously said London would become its first zero-emission city by 2025. However, the latest statistics show that the company remains less than half of reaching that goal, despite London being the most advanced market for EV adoption.
The company has repeatedly warned that this change will stop without strong support from policymakers. Last year, Uber said that “EV’s high costs, limited charging and inconsistent policy support” continue to slow driver adoption.
Those pressures have intensified as governments cut subsidies and introduced new taxes on electric vehicles. In the UK, chancellor Rachel Reeves announced a per-mile road tax in her Budget, which the government’s financial watchdogs warned could significantly reduce demand for EVs.
Rising electricity prices since the pandemic have also eroded the cost benefit of electric vehicles, and driver incentives have been pushed back. Uber itself has cut bonuses for drivers who use EVs, weakening the financial incentive to switch.
In London, the introduction of congestion charges on electric vehicles under Mayor Sadiq Khan has dealt another blow to Uber’s electrification plans in the capital.
At the end of last year, Uber said 40 percent of London trips were electric, compared to 15 percent across Europe and just 9 percent in the United States. In America, the rollback of EV subsidies under president Donald Trump has also slowed adoption.
Despite the change in tone, Uber’s website continues to state the desire for 100 percent of rides in Canada, Europe and the US to be zero-emission, although no revised deadline has been set.
Khosrowshahi sought to strike a more optimistic note in the long-term technology, suggesting that autonomous vehicles could eventually revive Uber’s green ambitions. He said taxi robots, which are electric, could start operating in London at the beginning of the year.
“One of the advantages of autonomous vehicles is that all vehicles are electric,” he said. “So the autonomous revolution will be an electric revolution.”
He added that discussions with UK regulators were ongoing, describing London as “dependent” on both artificial intelligence and autonomous transport, with the UK’s talent base being “very good”.
For now, however, Uber’s backtracking on its 2030 targets underscores the growing gap between political ambitions and the realities facing businesses and consumers as the electric car revolution loses momentum.
