Uber France aims for 50% electric vehicles by 2025

• Every last Friday of the month, 20 Minutes gives the floor to a business leader on a topical subject in his "20 Minutes with..." meeting.

• The general manager of Uber France Laureline Serieys returns for 20 Minutes to the development strategy of the platform, already present in 24 cities in France.

• It announces a plan of 75 million euros to encourage drivers to equip themselves with electric vehicles, by 2025.

Uber France continues to grow with a 33% increase in one year in all trips ordered on the platform, in 2022. While in 2021 all transport companies were still marked by the health crisis, it is a nice resurgence of activity.

The platform has a total of 32,000 registered drivers who work on their own, compared to 30,000 before the crisis.

Laureline Serieys, general manager of Uber France, details at

the platform's projects to continue its implementation, already effective in 24 cities in France.

What are the new services offered in the application?

New products have been launched to stimulate activity, including Uber Reserve, which allows you to book a ride in advance.

It is a tool to deploy the service in the smallest cities because the waiting times could be a little prohibitive there.

We also launched Uber Pet which allows, for a small supplement, to order a race while being accompanied by a pet.

These are products that we are launching to meet ever-increasing demand.

In Paris, we are testing Uber Share, which allows the passenger to benefit automatically from less 10% on the race.

And on his journey, there may be slight deviations because we can offer another passenger to join him and they then each have a 30% reduction.

This is an incentive for the passenger who pays up to 30% less and for the driver because it contributes to longer and therefore better paid journeys.

And besides, it makes a lot of sense from an ecological point of view because it makes it possible to make two journeys in one.

If the service works well, we will test it in other cities such as Lyon, Nice, Marseille

Lille or Bordeaux.

The drivers told me that some customers would be willing to pay more to have a vehicle available to them more quickly.

Based on this feedback, we launched a deployment of Uber Priority which allows the traveler to pay five euros more, if they wish, to have a driver faster (the average waiting time in 2022 is 8 minutes).

Last novelty in Paris, we launched a taxi option in the application and it is a real opportunity for reconciliation for the sector.

It allows you to order a taxi from the Uber application, with taxi fares.

It's a win because our customers are complementary and our customers have an additional feature.

This option was launched in October this year and there are already 500 connected drivers.

This is a very good business start.

I remind you that in all the proceedings that have existed for years, Uber has never been ordered to pay compensation to taxis for unfair competition.

How is the platform preparing for the New Year's night rush?

Drivers know that there can be a lot of requests.

On our side, we will ensure that the increase in pricing is effective that evening so that the drivers want to work but with a certain ceiling, so that these remain acceptable amounts for the passengers.

In 2020 and 2021, health instructions still persisted, I hope that in 2022 we will see a good end of the year.

Do you adopt different strategies depending on the city?

When you are a VTC driver, you have a national license with which you can work everywhere and that has many advantages.

Our application is not closed, if you want to open it in the mountains or in Lozère, you can find a driver.

In theory it's open everywhere, and from time to time we launch a new city when the supply of drivers is sufficient and the needs of passengers identified.

For example in a city like Nice, which has an extremely seasonal activity, fortunately other drivers from other cities can come as reinforcements.

On August 1, 2020, I took office, and my first commitment was to meet the drivers.

I did a tour of France and I do it again every year.

The concerns are different from one city to another.

In Nice, drivers can make journeys to Monaco, or the very steep hinterland of Nice, journeys for which electric is not considered suitable.

On the other hand, 66% of Bordeaux vehicles on the platform are green, that is to say hybrid or electric.

The national average is a little above 50% so I am not surprised that the problem of the lack of charging stations is present in Bordeaux, ahead of the subject of electricity.

How do you encourage your drivers to switch to cleaner vehicles?

We made a commitment by the end of 2024 in France, to have no more diesel vehicles on the platform.

Knowing that in 2020, 85% of registered vehicles were diesel, we can measure how ambitious this plan is.

We are also aiming for 50% electric vehicles by 2025.

We don't impose anything on our drivers, but we built this plan with them.

We have identified two main obstacles: the purchase price of the vehicle because there is not yet really a second-hand electric market and maintenance over time.

We have put in place a support plan of 75 million euros by 2025 to finance the purchase of electric vehicles for drivers.

How do we find this amount?

Each passenger who orders an Uber service, when it is not Uber green, pays an additional three cents per kilometer, which is collected by the driver.

It is not applied to Ubergreen users to ensure that this most virtuous option is also the cheapest.

When the driver wants to recover this kitty, Uber doubles the bet.

For example, for a driver who connects 42 hours a week, after three years, he obtains aid of 4,500 euros and it can go up to 8,000 euros.

We have also established partnerships for the installation of home charging stations with Total Energie so that drivers have access to them at negotiated prices.

How do you deal with the issue of social protection for drivers?

Today when you ask the drivers, 89% of them tell you that they choose this profession to be independent.

And when I come to meet hundreds of drivers, none asks me to be an employee.

On March 4, 2020, the Court of Cassation reclassified a driver as an employee for the very first time and we thought that would set a precedent.

But since then, 244 cases have been judged and in more than 90% of cases, the driver has not.

We have to invent a model where we can be both independent and have more social protection.

France has taken a unique path by setting up a social dialogue at sectoral level, with elected associations of drivers and various platforms.

It started in November, and I hope that the first agreements (minimum income, income protection etc.) will arrive by the end of the year.

Previously, Uber had already put in place protective measures, and in particular insurance paid 100% by Uber thanks to a partnership with AXA and which covers everything related to ATMP (accident at work and occupational disease).

We need to preserve flexibility by providing protection and I believe that it is time to mature when it comes to Uber's tradition of talking to drivers.

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