Ford is teaming up with Uber to supply versatile leases on electrical automobiles to rideshare drivers.
Uber is beneath strain from governments world wide to get extra of its drivers into EVs to scale back tailpipe air pollution and battle local weather change. And Ford is keen to get extra of its Mustang Mach-Es on the highway because it pours billions of {dollars} into EV manufacturing whereas incurring big losses.
Underneath the brand new Ford Drive program, Uber drivers would be capable of lease a Mustang Mach-E for versatile phrases, both one or four-months, relying on the placement. And there are different advantages as nicely. In response to Ford:
The car is delivered to the motive force inside two weeks, they usually use the Ford Drive app to handle funds and repair. In every metropolis, the Ford Drive crew works with native sellers to buy a fleet of Mach-Es. Service and upkeep of these automobiles are carried out by way of sellers as nicely.
However the lease program gained’t have a large rollout but. To start out out, the businesses are piloting this system in three cities: San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Ford Drive truly launched already in San Diego, with Ford leasing 150 EVs to Uber drivers in 2022. California is the most important EV market within the US, and the most important marketplace for EVs pushed on Uber’s ridehail platform.
Uber has been working its personal EV ridehail service in dozens of cities since final 12 months. Solely premium EVs, like Tesla, Polestar, and, after all, the Ford Mustang Mach-E, can be thought of eligible for Consolation Electrical journeys. It should sit alongside the corporate’s different EV product, Uber Inexperienced, which supplies drivers an additional payment (normally $1) to make use of electrical automobiles.
That is the second main partnership to be introduced by Ford in current days. Final week, the automaker mentioned it might undertake Tesla’s EV charging customary within the curiosity of opening up Elon Musk’s reliable and widespread charging community to Ford EV house owners.