Uber will develop an electric car in collaboration with British EV builder Arrival. Uber will use it for taxi rides, Uber announced on Tuesday.
The Arrival Car, as the car is currently called, will be presented this year, but will only roll off the production line in the third quarter of 2023. Uber drivers will be involved in the design process in the coming months to optimize seating comfort, user-friendliness and safety. Information on things like power, battery capacity, payload and range has not yet been released. According to the developers, an Uber car drives an average of 45,000 to 50,000 kilometers per year, more than four times as much as a normal car. Fast recharging and a good range can therefore not hurt.
The electric Arrival Car comes in handy because, in the long term, Uber only wants to run fully electric cars. This should already be the case in London by 2025, while the company also wants to be fully electric in the rest of Europe by 2030. As part of that endeavor, Uber Green was introduced in the Netherlands in June 2020. This allows you to opt for a ride with a fully electric car in Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
Hyundai
Most likely, a third major party is involved in one way or another in these developments: Hyundai. That brand recently announced that it will collaborate with Uber, which means that Uber will use electrically powered Hyundais on a large scale. Add to this that Hyundai already has a collaboration with Arrival and so it is likely that Hyundai also has a finger in the pie with the arrival of the Arrival Car.