The ride

By DEBRA KAHN

06/07/2023 12:00 PM EDT

Presented by

Chris Hook is trying to boost EV adoption among Uber drivers. | Courtesy Uber

Chris Hook cut his teeth at Uber implementing London's congestion charge on non-electric vehicles.

Now, as Uber's global head of sustainability, he's working on increasing the share of EVs across the company's service area to reach zero emissions in the U.S., Canada and the EU by 2030 and globally by 2040.

Hook, who's based in London and visited San Francisco last month, said the company's EV roadmap is driven by a mix of government policies and internal initiative.

"Some of that will be driven by us," he said. "Some of that will be driven by the cities that we operate in. That's quite common ground for Uber because we’re used to being regulated at the city level, and things being subtly different."

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Have you learned anything from policies like London's and California's ZEV targets for ride-hailing companies that you’ve been able to roll out to other cities?

We certainly have on two fronts: partnerships, and policies or incentives. On the partnerships front, we do a lot of trying to identify people at the local level or the national level who want to be the providers of the vehicles to drivers. We build relationships with companies and test them in certain markets and then take them elsewhere.

The best example of that would be the partnership with Hertz here in the U.S. That started out in a couple of cities and then went nationwide; we’ve now taken it to Europe. We waited for probably 12 months’ worth of proving out the model here and learning a lot of things about what you have to get right on the ground, the price points that are going to work, the models that people like, before we took it to the UK. Then we’re going to take it to Paris, etc.

On the policy side, the reason that London was the place we started was because the city was really pushing ahead in terms of thinking about a congestion zone. And on zero-emissions vehicles, the local licensing is quite focused on the emissions standards of the vehicles. So when we go to cities, we point to that example and say, ‘Look, these kind of conditions push everybody to move in this direction, and it changes the economics for the driver.’ The economics for the driver are really at the heart of all of it.

So you’ve figured out how to make a congestion charge work in London, basically.

Yeah, I think that's right. And the key with the London congestion charge is you don't pay it if you’re in an electric vehicle, whereas you do pay it if you’re in any other type of vehicle.

That means if I’m a driver making a choice about what vehicle to operate, I’m looking at quite a different weekly cost of fuel, which is true everywhere, of maintenance, etc. But also just on this road pricing charge, and that's enough to tip a lot of drivers into, ‘Okay, well, it would be better for me to get the EV then, even if the headline price is slightly more expensive.’

We’re at 18 percent EVs in London at the moment. When I joined to run that program, just locally, that's my first role at Uber, we had 100 EVs. We’ve now got 8,000 in three years.

The D.C. Council is considering a $2 surcharge on ride-hailing trips into downtown, and Uber's opposing it. Can you speak to that?

I probably can't speak to the details of that very well. I would say the reason that we think the London example has been successful is there's a distinction between what type of vehicle you’re in, you pay a different fee from an emissions perspective. And then it applies to everybody. So as a citizen of London, I have to pay up, too. So it then encourages cleaner vehicles across the board. And it's kind of a level thing. Those two facts together probably make it politically harder for the mayor, I’m sure. But I think that leadership helps in terms of providing the broad nudge.

In European countries, you have a 7.3 percent share of trip miles in ZEVs. In Canada and the U.S. it's 4.7 percent. Would you attribute the discrepancy to differing policies?

I think it has a lot to do with policy. And actually that U.S. and Canada number has accelerated very quickly in the last 12 months; we’ve started from a lower base. And I would expect to see those two numbers hopefully, both can increase pretty quickly. But it wouldn't be a surprise to me if the U.S. and Canada start to catch up. And I think that the policy environment is a big driver of that fact. London is a big city for us, too, in Europe. And so the fact that we’ve been running ahead in London, again, largely attributable to policy conditions, has really helped that.

At your shareholder meeting last month, the company recommended voting against a resolution to prepare an independent third-party audit on driver health and safety. Can you talk about that part of sustainability?

We have an ESG team who I work with a lot. My focus is really the E. That's what I’m spending my time doing.

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That's interesting that you see your job as the E part of environmental, social and governance issues. Are there other people who do the S and G?

We have a head of ESG, who I work with a lot. His role is coordination across those three topics and then a lot of engagement with the shareholders, stakeholders, etc.

I’m trying to pull together the operational teams who are doing on-the-ground work, the partnerships, policy, engagement and working with government, the tech, people who are based here building new features in our app to make sure that it's easier as a driver to get one of these vehicles, that we’re giving you information on where to charge, that we’re thinking about integrating that stuff through the rider experience so that you can choose to ride in an EV if you want to. So I’m trying to coordinate across all of those teams. And then Alvin [Huntspon] on the ESG team is really focused on that component and then he has people like me who are working on some of the S elements of that.

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When I was reading your ESG report, I wasn't clear on what parts you see as a material risk to the company, and what parts are about your impact on the world. Do you differentiate?

I think more about the latter. We think about our Scope 1, 2, 3 emissions, and almost all are Scope 3 emissions. And we measure that as accurately as we can. And we think about how do we reduce that impact in the world? And what levers can we pull to reduce the emissions that we have direct control over in Scope 1 or 2, which is small, but still real, and then Scope 3, how can we make sure that as people use our products and services they’re not creating environmental impact?

We think a little bit about the reverse, which is, as the climate warms, and that creates all kinds of chaos, what is the impact on us? That's much less of a factor for a business like Uber than it would have been if we had a big manufacturing footprint, but it's not zero. Cities are going to have to change how they operate and respond to a warming climate; that will have a knock-on effect.

It is already affecting all these policies that you have to respond to.

That's right. If the car industry was electrifying, and we were just ignoring it and doing nothing about it, I feel like that would change our relationship with some of those suppliers and drivers, etc. So part of it is response, but a lot of it is thinking about, ‘Okay, we have a footprint, we’d like to have a smaller footprint, I think it's our responsibility to reduce that over time, what proactive steps can we take to move towards that future.’

What obstacles do you see to getting drivers and riders to choose EVs?

So, EVs are still more expensive. And we can do some stuff to try and reduce those costs through partnerships, through incentives, etc. They’re trending down towards cost parity with non-EVs, but we’re not at that point yet. Until we’re at that point, there's always going to be some people who, when they’re making that choice, aren't able to afford EVs. So that's an obstacle and it's going to persist as an obstacle.

Charging is also an obstacle for two reasons. There are some places where it just is not very easy to charge your vehicle, particularly in big cities, and particularly dense parts of big cities, there are certain neighborhoods that are kind of charging deserts, where there just isn't any provision.

If you live in a house with a driveway, you can charge overnight, the whole experience is quite easy. If you don't, and you have to rely on public infrastructure, you then become very dependent on where that infrastructure exists. And so that's a real blocker for people. When we survey and talk to drivers and say, ‘What is it that's stopping you from getting into an EV,’ those two things always come up.

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