Green Mode, Lyft’s skateboarding option that lets travelers specifically request a hybrid or all-electric vehicle, is expanding to 14 new U.S. markets beginning April 17. These areas include San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, Chicago, San Diego, Washington, D.C., Austin, Denver, Orange County, Sacramento, and Phoenix.
Riders will need a business profile to use the green mode feature, which is available to anyone with a work email address. Lyft spokesperson CJ Macklin said that the restriction is intended to allow the company to test the ride-hailing option with a smaller group of its users and that the plan is to make it more widely available over time.
Lyft aims to have a 100 percent electric fleet by the end of 2030
Lyft’s Green Mode isn’t entirely new. It was originally introduced in Seattle in 2019 before expanding to Portland. But a lack of demand caused Lyft to drop the option on the Seattle market in 2021, and later focus on Portland. Later this month, the low-emissions option will return to Seattle along with 13 other markets.
Switching to lower-emission vehicles is important if the ride-hailing industry hopes to reduce the additional pollution created when choosing its services over alternatives such as public transit, cycling or walking. One study from 2020 suggested that horseback riding excursions emit 69 percent more pollution, on average, than the excursions they replace. Switching to electric cars was one of the study’s recommendations, along with accumulating more rides.
Uber, Lyft’s main competitor in the US, has its own low-emission vehicle transportation option called Uber Green, which is already available in a slew of markets. In early 2021, Uber said it will expand the option to more than 1,400 cities in North America, and it’s also available internationally in markets like London. However, the exact specifications of the Uber Green app seem to vary by region. Uber’s US site notes that it gives riders the option to travel in “hybrid and all-electric vehicles,” while in London, it offers 100% electric cars.