Understanding the Relationship between Uber Drivers and their Vehicles

Chris Hook is the Global Sustainability Strategy Lead at Uber. 

Earlier this summer, Uber’s CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, wrote a piece on Uber's corporate blog where he outlined a wide array of product features, partnerships, and initiatives at Uber designed to reduce emissions and waste from their footprint, including pulling Uber Eats into their sustainability roadmap for the first time.

It's an interesting challenge. Famously, Uber doesn't own any cars on the road. The individual drivers do. And with Uber Eats, they don't own the restaurants on their platform or control what choices they may make around packaging and waste. They just dispatch drivers for food delivery. It would be easy for Uber to say that the emissions generated via their platform are not their problem, and yet they've done the opposite.

Uber also has a lot of influence. They're able to use their scale to negotiate better EV rental, lease or purchase rates for drivers or better pricing on compostable packaging for restaurants. They're also a leverage point in introducing new products to people. They estimate that over 30 million riders to date have had a chance to experience riding in an EV via Uber, many of whom did so for the first time.

Many folks tried EVs first by renting one via the partnerships that Uber has formed with leading rental companies and almost universally they enjoyed driving EVs more and it works out economically for them. And some, not all, have really done the math on that. We’re grateful to Chris for joining us and hope you enjoy this conversation.

Have any questions for Chris? He’s spent the last decade working with businesses and institutions on sustainability topics. Join Chris for a special Ask Me Anything session on November 1, 2023 in the MCJ member Slack! Details here.

In this episode, we cover: 

• [4:20] Chris' background and his journey to working at Uber
• [9:00] Uber's sustainability commitments and company culture
• [13:20] Challenges of reducing emissions and waste from Uber's platform
• [16:45] Uber's efforts to make EV adoption more accessible and affordable for drivers, including partnerships with car manufacturers, rental companies, and financing providers
• [25:04] The Uber Green rider experience
• [27:17] The importance of charging infrastructure and the need to make it more convenient and affordable for drivers
• [33:02] Rider incentives
• [35:27] Sustainability efforts for Uber Eats
• [29:49] Opportunities for startups to help Uber in their mission

Get connected: 

• Chris Hook LinkedIn
• Cody Simms X / LinkedIn
• MCJ Podcast / Collective / Instagram

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Episode recorded on Oct 4, 2023 (Published on Oct 23, 2023)

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant