Abstract:

In cities, more than 20% of residents use ride-hailing services. Many governments are implementing policies to address ride-hailing fleets’ traffic and environmental externalities and steer them toward adopting more electric vehicles. This research analyzes two pressing questions that are highly relevant across major U.S. cities, namely, quantifying how many electric ride-hail vehicles can be supported by a growing public charging infrastructure network and how many additional dedicated chargers could pave the way for a fully electric ride-hailing fleet. This working paper assesses the charging infrastructure needs to support the growth of electric ride-hailing in the 2020–2030 time frame in U.S. cities. The analysis quantifies the amount and type of infrastructure needed and specifically analyzes the extent to which electric ride-hailing fleets can take advantage of underutilized public charging infrastructure capacity. Based on this analysis, the paper identifies pathways to overcome the infrastructure barrier to the electrification of ride-hailing.