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Uber on Wednesday announced a new multi-year partnership with BYD that will put its drivers in some 100,000 new electric vehicles produced by the Chinese giant.
The deal is expected to offer Uber’s drivers lower vehicle pricing and financing, with the potential of other benefits down the road, including discounts on charging and insurance. Drivers will first be offered incentives to buy a BYD car in Europe and Latin America — two markets BYD is working to expand into — and later into the Middle East, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
The partnership is part of Uber’s years-long commitment to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, which is heavily reliant on expanding its drivers’ adoption of EVs. The company has previously worked with automakers like Tesla and General Motors, as well as rental companies such as Hertz and charging network providers like EVgo and Revel Transit, to offer discounts on electric cars and necessary services.
In March, Uber added an “emissions saving” feature that tracks how many carbon emissions consumers have saved by taking rides in hybrid or EV Ubers. Uber said Wednesday that its drivers are making the switch to EVs about five times faster than private car owners, although they still struggle with affordability issues. As of Uber’s first quarter, just over 8% of its rideshare trip miles in the U.S. and Canada were completed in zero-emission vehicles, compared to 9% in Europe,
“When an Uber driver makes the switch to an EV, they can deliver up to four times the emissions benefits compared to a regular motorist, simply because they are on the road more,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement, adding that the partnership will help “demonstrate the benefits of EVs to more people around the world.”
The partnership comes as BYD looks to grow its global presence and grapples with a series of new tariffs placed on China-made EVs. The automaker is already one of the leading EV sellers in the world and has plans to make its cars in new factories Hungary, Turkey, and Brazil, over the next several years.
In their joint statement, the companies neglected to mention the U.S., which has taken a hard stance against BYD and Chinese EVs. While the Europe Union and countries like Canada have raised or are considering increasing tariffs on China’s EVs, none have gone as far as the U.S. President Joe Biden has said his administration will quadruple his predecessors’ tariffs on Chinese EVs to 102.5%. in an effort to keep China’s automakers away from the domestic market.
“This collaboration marks a new era in the electrification of urban mobility, and we look forward to seeing our cutting-edge EVs become a common sight on the streets of cities worldwide,” BYD Americas CEO Stella Li said in a statement.
Besides expanding EV adoption, the companies plan to work together on deploying vehicles capable of self-driving on Uber’s platform, noting that they are “well-positioned to bring autonomous vehicle technology” to a global audience. Uber in 2020 sold off its self-driving car project to Aurora Innovations, which agreed to let its driverless vehicles eventually operation on Uber’s services.
Uber is currently working with Google’s Waymo to provide autonomous rides in Phoenix. In some parts of the U.S. and Japan, Uber offers autonomous deliveries through driverless cars or robots. An eventual fleet of fully driverless cars could be necessary for Uber’s future, as rivals like Tesla look to launch their own fleet of so-called robotaxis.
Uber stock climbed 2% in pre-market trading Wednesday.