Electrify Private Fleets

Background

There are a set of private fleets in Seattle that are large enough and distinct enough to benefit from having their own electrification policies. These are:

• Transportation Network Companies: e.g., Uber and Lyft. These are companies where individual subcontractors offer their private vehicles on a part-time basis. See here for more information and policies on them. The City has rules about the vehicles that may be used for this. The companies have rules also.

• Taxis. The City has rules about vehicles used as taxis.

• Package delivery. These are the small vans that drop packages to commercial and residential locations (e.g. UPS, Amazon).

• Corporate fleets. This includes companies like Puget Sound Energy, Comcast, CenturyLink, etc. that have small trucks and vans making house calls.

The State is compiling a plan for electrifying publicly owned fleets, and this plan may end up serving as a useful model for these private entities. The State could require these private entities to draw up their own plans for electrification.

Electrification of these fleets is getting more cost-effective all the time. The cost of lithium batteries has dropped from $1183/kWh in 2010 to $135/kWh in 2030. Just in the last year, 2019-2020, it has dropped 13%.