Dive Brief:

• May Mobility plans to put robotaxis on the road this year in midtown Atlanta in conjunction with Lyft and in Arlington, Texas, with Uber, it said in a July 10 press release.
• The autonomous vehicle technology company’s software will integrate with the ride-hail companies’ apps, allowing riders to choose an autonomous or traditional vehicle.
• Both deployments will start with standby operators before transitioning to driverless operations. In a May news release, May Mobility said it plans to roll out “thousands of AVs on the Uber platform over the next few years.” 

Dive Insight:

May Mobility operates its own fleets in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and Martinez, California. The Detroit service is free to residents 62 years and older or who live with disabilities as part of a city-backed pilot program. The Grand Rapids program, developed with the support of the Minnesota Department of Transportation, aims to serve those without a private vehicle or who have mobility challenges.

The company says its AV technology can handle narrow city streets, provides more human-like maneuvering around obstacles like double-parked cars and delivers smoother accelerations and braking.

Among its investors are Toyota, State Farm and BMW. In June, global financial firm MUFG Bank announced an investment and partnership with May Mobility. The partners will collaborate to expand May Mobility’s fleet in Japan, where there is a shortage of drivers related to declining birth rates and an aging population, the companies said in a news release. 

May Mobility said its technology can operate in both left- and right-hand driving environments.

The biggest ride-hailing companies globally are struggling to keep their electric vehicle promises.

In 2020, Uber, the world’s largest ride-hailing company, set a target for all its rides and deliveries to be zero-emission by 2040. As of 2025, only a few hundred thousand out of its 7.1 million drivers have adopted green rides.

Grab, Southeast Asia’s biggest ride-hailing company, is targeting carbon neutrality by 2040. Last year, 7% of all Grab rides and deliveries used low- or zero-emission modes of transport, including electric and hybrid vehicles, cyclists, and walkers.

While Uber, Lyft, and Grab don’t disclose the precise number of EVs in their fleets, each platform has less than 1% EVs globally, research and advisory firm Gartner estimates.

“Even though we have seen immense growth in EV adoption by these companies, it is highly unlikely they will achieve 100% EV adoption in the next decade,” Shivani Palepu, transport tech analyst at Gartner, told Rest of World. Palepu expects the shift to electric to vary “drastically” by region.

Adoption hurdles are steeper in developing regions such as South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Africa, where poor charging infrastructure, high vehicle costs, and unclear regulations make electrification difficult for drivers already struggling with thin margins. North America and Europe have better conditions with state subsidies and robust charging networks. 

Yet, the gap between policy support and market reality persists. Lyft, which primarily operates in EV-friendly North America, committed to an all-electric fleet by 2030. The company says it has achieved only 20% hybrid or electric rides so far, despite substantial bonuses and charging discounts.

Europe leads in EV adoption with tax breaks, congestion-charge exemptions, and free parking for EV owners, according to Bolt, the world’s fourth-largest ride-hailing company. Bolt is based in Tallinn, Estonia, with a presence in 600 cities globally. It offers electric and green cars in 70 cities across Europe and Africa. The company is aiming for net-zero mobility solutions by 2040.

Europe has more than 1 million public chargers, two years after a law mandated fast-charging stations to be placed every 60 kilometers (about 37 miles) by the end of 2025, according to industry data. In Thailand, where Bolt has more than half a million drivers, there are fewer than 10,000 charging points, with less than half offering fast-charging capabilities.

Bolt is aiming for a modest 10% of its fleet to go electric in the next three years, Nathadon Suksiritarnan, Bolt’s country manager, told Rest of World on the sidelines of Thailand’s first ride-hailing summit in Bangkok last month.

The highest EV penetration for Bolt is in cities like Oslo, Amsterdam, Helsinki, London, Paris, and Lisbon.

EVs account for almost a tenth of Uber’s miles in the U.S. and Canada, more than 15% in Europe, and as much as 40% in leading cities such as London and Amsterdam. The platform is the world’s most widely available service for zero-emission rides, with drivers adopting EVs five times faster than average motorists, Uber’s global head of electrification and sustainability Rebecca Tinucci said in a May 7 blog post.

High upfront vehicle costs, weak supply chains, and sporadic after-sales service are additional deterrents in developing markets, according to industry analysts. Singapore, with strong government support, represents an exception from the regional norm, said Jonathan Chua, regional general manager of zero-commission ride-hailing platform Tada.

“Strong government-led initiatives … including islandwide EV charging infrastructure targets, rebates for EV adoption, and regulatory support” are Singapore’s strong points, Chua told Rest of World.

Beyond infrastructure gaps, ride-hailing drivers face several financial and operational barriers that compound the challenge of going electric. The distance covered on a single charge is the primary concern for drivers: Running out of power during peak earning hours directly threatens their livelihood.

“Range anxiety is one of the biggest hurdles for EV adoption among driver partners,” Palepu said. “Charging an EV takes more time than refueling a petrol or diesel car, which can reduce the number of trips a driver can complete in a day, directly impacting earnings.”

Most ride-hailing drivers lack the credit scores needed for traditional vehicle loans.

“One advantage of the ride-hailing app is that you have the data,” Kittipoap Watcharavasuntra, head of risk analytics and advisory at Tisco Financial Group, Thailand’s first investment bank, said in a presentation at the Bangkok summit.

While lenders are conceptually starting to embrace the earnings, vehicle utilization and other data when it comes to underwriting loans, a reality where they dole out financing based on it is still far, Nitin Sharma, a partner at Antler India, told Rest of World. The VC firm invests in several EV and mobility startups.

Improvements are reshaping the EV landscape, with battery ranges extending from 140 kilometers to more than 400 kilometers (about 85 to 250 miles) in premium models. Manufacturers like Tata and Citroën offer warranty coverage up to 300,000 kilometers (18,640 miles). 

Service turnaround times have plummeted from multiday delays to just a couple of hours — a game-changing development for drivers whose incomes depend on vehicle operational time. While EVs initially didn’t make business sense, improved after-sales support now ensures they do, Monil Jayeshkumar Khatri, co-founder of Gurugram-based EV fleet operator Milo Drive, told Rest of World.

Emerging markets are developing some of the most promising innovations. They are pioneering creative solutions that could reshape how the industry approaches electrification.

“Battery swapping and flexible ownership models are often leading the way,” Amos Mwangi, senior electric mobility associate at World Resources Institute Africa, told Rest of World.

Pay-as-you-go schemes and lease-to-own programs are gaining traction, though they have yet to achieve the scale needed for widespread impact. In Thailand, Bolt has partnered with Singapore-based Sleek EV on a rent-to-own model with low interest rates, long repayment schedules, and annual free tire replacement. Sleek EV has sold almost 4,000 electric motorbike units, around 10% of which are used by ride-hailing and delivery services, founder ZQ Ong told Rest of World.

New platform models are emerging to address driver vulnerabilities. Companies like Milo Drive consolidate ride requests across multiple apps to maximize vehicle utilization and driver earnings, while avoiding exclusive partnerships that leave drivers dependent on a single platform’s fortunes.

Some ambitious ventures have demonstrated both the potential and the risk of all-electric models. BluSmart built India’s first all-electric ride-hailing fleet, and expanded across Delhi and Bengaluru for six years. The company entered Mumbai early this year before collapsing in May, due to financial misconduct by the founders.

BluSmart built its “entire model around an all-electric fleet, demonstrating it was operationally viable,” said Palepu about the company’s brief success.

There are some bright spots. Chinese manufacturer BYD has secured partnerships for 100,000 EVs with Uber and 50,000 with Grab worldwide. These ventures underscore a crucial reality where vehicle quality, competitive pricing, accessible financing, and reliable after-sales support must all work in harmony.

“For all markets, enabling policies, availability of EV technology and charging infrastructure, financing, sector skilling, and awareness are necessary for EV transition,” Mwangi said.

The ride-hailing industry’s shift from combustible engines will likely depend not on any single breakthrough, but on whether conditions can be created where going electric becomes the obvious choice.

“The future of EVs in mobility will be defined by accessibility, affordability, and trust,” Chua said. “Our role, as a platform, will be to lead with innovation while ensuring no driver is left behind in the transition, supporting them fully for a meaningful, sustainable livelihood.”