Ride sharing company Lyft plans to deploy 200 long-range electric vehicles into its efforts in Denver, Colorado.
The Express Drive program operates in about three dozen cities in the U.S. and lets drivers rent vehicles t hrough Lyft’s partners instead of committing to longer-term options such as leasing or buying.
The EVs will be available in December and will be the largest such EV deployment in Colorado and one of the largest in the U.S. according to Smart Cities Dive. Lyft’s larger plan is to have a fully-electrified fleet but the company is not revealing how many EVs will be available nationwide. However, in a blog post,the company stated earlier this year that it hopes to introduce “thousands” of EVs this year
Forward-thinking EV adoption policies by state and local governments in Colorado helped to make the deployment feasible in Denver, according to a Lyft blog post. A key action has been improvements to EV incentive programs. Lyft expressed a desire to grow its electrification efforts beyond Colorado, but it challenged partners including policymakers, regulators, utilities, nonprofits and auto manufacturers to help it get there.
Earlier this year, Lyft launched “Green Mode” to let passengers request an EV or hybrid vehicle through the Express Drive program. Seattle and Atlanta were the first two cities where EVs were introduced. Last year, Lyft declared that it was carbon neutral, in large part due to its purchase of carbon offsets.