BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Brooklyn e-scooter sharing
fi rm Revel won’t be able to
use a city loophole to launch its
all-electric cab service on the
streets of Downtown Manhattan
after the Taxi and Limousine
Commission voted on June
22 to remove an exemption for
electric cars from its cap on
new for-hire vehicle licenses.
“We will not be repeating
the same mistakes of the past.
We already have a cap and a
process in place to look at issuing
new vehicle licenses holistically,
based on the need of
the market and the needs of our
city,” said TLC Commissioner
Aloysee Heredia Jarmoszuk at
the June 22 public hearing.
The agency’s move dashed
the hopes of Revel to roll out a
fl eet of 50 blue-branded Teslas
by using a city incentive for cab
drivers to go electric to bypass a
three-year-old limit on new forhire
vehicle licenses.
Mayor Bill de Blasio introduced
Specifications for meal totals and locations can only be obtained by
contacting Michael Ng by email at mng@cpc-nyc.org.
COURIER L 20 IFE, JUNE 25-JULY 1, 2021
the cap in 2018 after
companies like Uber and Lyft
fl ooded the ride-hailing market,
threatening to displace yellow
cab drivers and clog Manhattan’s
streets.
The only way to get around
that was to apply for a new license
with electric vehicles or
wheelchair-accessible cars.
But the commission voted
on a new rule Tuesday to end
that exemption for EVs, which
also happened to be Primary
Day in the city, with Commissioner
Jarmoszuk saying there
was currently a massive oversupply
of for-hire vehicles.
The agency has issued licenses
to 96,900 cars, but 86,134
— or 89% — have not performed
a single ride since March 1, according
to the TLC guru.
“Why would the TLC license
more vehicles when
there are so many that are so
many that are not in use right
now,” she said. “There is no
shortage of licensed vehicles
right now in New York City.
The number of licensed vehicles
outweighs the demands
for rides.”
Revel, known for its omnipresent
blue mopeds, announced
their venture into the
e-hail market in April, with 50
cars slated to serve riders in
Manhattan below 42nd Street
juiced up at a charging ‘superhub’
the company planned
to launch next week at the old
Pfi zer factory in Brooklyn.
Revel’s founders touted the
service as a counter to existing
rideshare companies like
Uber and Lyft, by hiring their
drivers as employees with paid
time off and healthcare benefi
ts as opposed to gig workers.
The day before the vote,
the fi rm’s leaders and supporters
rallied outside City Hall
in advance of Tuesday’s meeting
calling on the city to allow
them to move forward.
At the Tuesday virtual
hearing, chief executive offi -
cer Frank Reig pleaded with
the commission not to end the
EV exemption, saying its service
would not grow as fast as
those that have come before,
because they would need to expand
charging stations at the
same time.
“Revel isn’t going to fl ood
the streets with thousands of
cars at once like other operators
have in the past. In fact,
we literally can’t do that. A forhire
electric fl eet needs charging
infrastructure and this
city has none of that,” Reig
said. “Our goal is to do a multiyear
buildout of charging infrastructure
along with our rideshare
service.”
Revel employees and supporters
rally outside City Hall on June 21.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
One of 50 Revel-branded Teslas the company wants to roll out as part of
an all-electric cab fl eet. Photo by Kevin Duggan
Dead battery!
NYC closes electric vehicle exemption, blocking Revel’s
electric Tesla cab launch in the Five Boroughs
INVITATION FOR BIDS
to provide meals and snacks for the
Chinese-American Planning Council
A vendor contract is needed to provide meal catering services that adhere to
CACFP requirements to day care centers in downtown Manhattan and
Flushing, Queens.
All work will be conducted in strict accordance with bid specification.
MWBE vendors welcomed. Bids will be opened and read by July 27, 2021
link
link
