As electric vehicles increasingly become a more normalized commodity, their presence on the streets of New York City continues to expand, with a considerable portion of these cars being Teslas.
Many of these now make up a sizable proportion of Uber, Lyfts, and other forms of car services in the city.
This phenomenon picked up last year when Mayor Eric Adams briefly lifted a cap established by former Mayor Bill de Blasio on new for-hire vehicle licenses; the licenses however, only applied to electric vehicles.
Much to the disadvantage of yellow taxi services, this resulted in more than 8,000 additional cars working for Uber and Lyft, along with there now being around 10,000 electric for-hire vehicles and taxi cabs allowed to conduct business on NYC streets in total.
In reaction to this development, The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents yellow cab drivers, immediately filed a lawsuit last year to block the city Taxi and Limousine Commission from lifting the cap. Even before the pandemic, yellow cabs’ revenue dropped by 30% from 2012 to 2019, and the value of medallions fell by 80%, according to the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. The advocacy group blames the taxi industry’s sorry state on the flood of for-hire vehicles like Uber, which arrived in 2011.
In response to the suit, a judge issued an injunction pausing the issuance of new for-hire vehicle licenses. But before the judge ruled, there was a 26-day window in the fall when drivers were free to apply for a license. Many seized the opportunity.
The injunction remains in effect. More filings are due in the case at the end of the month.
Of the EVs that became licensed due to the lifted cap, about 80% are Teslas, city data shows. Many of the new battery-loving taxi drivers even paid extra for personalized license plates nodding to their source of power: E1ECTR1C, SP4RK, PWRBANK, EL3CTRC, NOPGAS, NOGAS2, GASOVER, GASYUCK and BYEGAS.
The TLC has reported that 91% of the licenses during that window went to individual drivers, rather than private companies that rent TLC-approved vehicles to drivers.
Yet for drivers of EVs, charging their car proves to be an increasingly difficult task, as there are limited battery charging stations across the city, though federal officials and the DOT are taking steps toward creating these hubs in more parking garages and gas stations around the city.
