Uber drivers completed 207.4 million trips in electric vehicles in the third quarter, more than 26 EV rides a second on average, InsideEVs reported. About 434,000 EV drivers were active on the platform from July through September, up 52% from a year earlier; a related figure in the same report put the count of EV drivers behind the wheel at more than 424,000, also up 52%. EV trips were 52% higher than in the same period last year. In Europe, one in five Uber trips was in an EV, while one in ten riders in the United States and Canada in the third quarter ended up in an electric car. Uber has offered cash bonuses to drivers who switch to an EV, and it says it remains "deeply committed to this transition," even while conceding that, on current trends, its 2030 goals "continue to be out of reach."
The geographic split is sharp. Europe has led in electrification since at least the first quarter of 2021, InsideEVs noted, and pulled further ahead from the third quarter of 2024, helped by incentives and charging infrastructure, while uptake in the United States and Canada stayed relatively flatter. Emissions figures tell a similar story. In the United States and Canada, each passenger-mile on Uber produced 318 grams of carbon dioxide on average, better than 340 grams in 2024 but worse than 306 grams in 2023. In Europe the figure was 186 grams per mile last year, lower than 2024 and 2023 but still above the 183-gram average in 2022. Uber attributed the gap both to a greater European preference for EVs and hybrids and to more stringent fuel-economy reporting standards in the United States.
The company has already missed almost all of its 2025 sustainability targets and is on course to miss 2030 goals by a wide margin, the report said. In 2025 it had wanted 100% of rides in London and Amsterdam to be zero-emission; the result was 41%. It had envisioned 50% of mobility miles in seven European capitals in electric vehicles, and finished at 32%. By the end of the decade it has said 100% of rides in Canada, Europe and the United States should be zero-emission, a target Uber itself now treats as highly unlikely. Gas- and diesel-powered cars have continued to join the platform even as EV numbers rose.
The verified news is a record quarter of EV trips and drivers, with the published regional shares, emissions rates and missed 2025 targets. It is not evidence that Uber will hit a 100% zero-emission fleet by 2030, and the company has said many of the levers sit outside its control.