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Climate Impact Goals
- acabal 9y agoLofty goals, and needed. However I can't help but mourn that at least in Chicago, all of the taxis I've ever taken in the past several years have been hybrid vehicles. I think I can count on one hand the number of hybrids/electric Lyfts and Ubers I've taken. So in Chicago (like everywhere else) ridesharing is decimating the taxi industry, but here when you take a rideshare instead of a taxi there's a greater chance your ride is not climate-friendly today. So while it's nice that Lyft is targeting 2025, in this specific case you could have already been saving carbon by taking regular taxis instead. I don't know if Lyft/Uber already have a feature like this (someone else always calls one for us) but it would be nice if they allowed you to only take rides in hybrid/electric vehicles, or if they would otherwise incentivize drivers who had such vehicles.
- 3adawi 9y agoAlmost every Uber I've taken in London was a Prius, a hybrid car
- nicolashahn 9y agoIn San Francisco it seems that about half of the ones I take are.
- neuronexmachina 9y agoWhen I requested an Uber for pickup from the Seattle airport's rideshare stop I saw a line of about 20 Priuses all in a row. In LA, from my sample size of several dozen Uber rides, I've seen roughly 50% hybrids.
- passivepinetree 9y agoAFAIK they don't allow a feature like this. If they implemented one, I would gladly use it (even if it cost slightly higher or came with worse availability). That would be an easy way to allow consumers to vote with their actions and support electric vehicles.
- templaedhel 9y agoSome cities (Paris off the top of my head) have "UberGreen" which is exactly this - You can elect to only take rides from hybrid or electric vehicles. https://newsroom.uber.com/portugal/ubergreenen/ https://newsroom.uber.com/portugal/ubergreenen/
- shanev 9y agoUberX was initially hybrid cars only.
- davedx 9y agoIf you ever fly to Amsterdam, make sure you jump in one of the many white Tesla taxis at the airport. :)
- andygates 9y agoWell, taxis are regulated. I'd be more impressed if this wasn't puffing future tech, and was instead committing to ratcheting efficiency requirements across their drivers' vehicles.
- b1gnasty 9y agoHmm, is all you need is a pink-tinged blog post on long term climate goals to PR your way into convincing the world you aren't harming it?? It's pretty obvious that the current so-called "ridesharing" product is increasing CO2 emissions. But good on you Lyft for embracing that good-guy-stance. Keep it up
- Ductapemaster 9y agoWhat about ridesharing is "obviously" increasing emissions? I don't dispute the fact, but what evidence is this based on?
- thesmallestcat 9y agoRidesharing companies compete with mass transit.
- inimino 9y agoAnd with individual car ownership.
- danjoc 9y agoDidn't lyft shut down their carpool commute feature, because nobody wanted that? If you're "ride sharing" without actually stopping to pick up/drop off additional passengers, it's just a taxi. An unlimited, unregulated number of taxis. More cars on the road, fewer people on public transport, more pollution. It's possible I misunderstand how these taxi companies work. I'm invisible to them. I don't have their apps. I'd rather they not track my movements every half minute for the government to subpoena, for a fee of course.
- astrange 9y agoDon't worry, Lyft Line definitely exists. I don't know what kind of crime being a passenger in one would result in though.
- Jimmie_Rustle 9y ago#VirtueSignalling
- sctb 9y agoWould you please stop posting like this? Hacker News is for thoughtful, intellectually interesting discussion and we ban accounts that continue to abuse the site. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- phinnaeus 9y ago> By 2025, Lyft’s shared platform will provide at least 1 billion rides per year using electric autonomous vehicles. Wow. That seems lofty.
- exacube 9y agolyft currently does like 200-250 million rides/yr [1] with a crazy trajectory. if we "conservatively" assume 40-50% average growth YOY in ridership that's like 6 billion rides/yr by 2025.. which puts this estimate at 15% - 30% of rides being all-electric + autonomous. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-27/lyft-bookings-and-ridership-soar-while-losses-shrink https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-27/lyft-book...
- ChemicalWarfare 9y agogreenhouse gasses' share in the atmosphere is about 2%. of that 2% CO2's share is about 4%. of that 4%, total antropogenic CO2 adds up to about 3%. not sure what percentage of that 3% Lyft is responsible for but I'm guessing not enough to impact the climate in any meaningful manner :)
- inimino 9y agoNow apply the same reasoning to every other company in every other polluting industry, and you see (or at least show) why we have a problem.
- joshualross 9y agoWith Peter Thiel and Carl Icahn as both close Trump advisors and Lyft investors[1], I wonder if the damage done on one side will equal the benefit of these lofty climate goals on the other? As a concerned citizen, I applaud their effort, but I think companies like Tesla are doing far more to drive the conversion to electric cars. That being said, we need every company to do their part, so kudos Lyft! [1] http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/31/technology/tech-travel-ban-peter-thiel/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/31/technology/tech-travel-ban-p...
- davedx 9y ago> we need every company to do their part Exactly. These days if I see any company making a significant climate pledge of some kind, I support them as fully as I can with my business.
- gldalmaso 9y agoIs Trump's bail form the Paris Agreement going to be his most positive legacy? It seems like it has sparked a much bigger interest to double down on its goals by a lot of actors than it would otherwise have been if Trump just pretended to be on board. A Streisand Effect for climate policy of sorts.
- whazor 9y agoI would prefer to see a bonus for drivers with less pollutant cars. It is easy and directly implementable.