Revel, the New York-based ride-share company with distinctive light-blue electric cars, said it will end its service Monday to focus on expanding its network of charging stations.
The company said it was making the move for reasons similar to its decision to end electric moped service in 2023: There are lots of ways to get around the city, and plenty of competitors are vying for passengers. Even at Revel’s height, its fleet of cars was dwarfed by companies like Uber and Lyft.
Most of Revel’s 500 cars are leased, and the cars will be returned to the owners. The company employed more than 600 drivers a month, who were not given any advance warning about the company’s decision, according to a Revel spokesperson.
Frank Reig, Revel’s co-founder and chief executive, said ending the ride-share service was best for the company and, broadly, for the continued adoption of electric vehicles by the public. “The best way we can keep the E.V. transition moving forward is by ending our ride-share service and focusing on building the fast-charging infrastructure our biggest cities need to keep going electric,” he said.
The company said it will look to increase its number of charging stalls around the New York City region to 278 from 88 by the end of next year. Uber could benefit from the build out: In March 2024, the companies agreed to give Uber drivers a discount at Revel’s charging stations in New York City.
Revel started its ride-share program in April 2021 with 50 vehicles that operated only in New York City. It had around 80,000 rides in June in New York City, compared with about 20 million combined rides for Uber and Lyft, according to the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission Factbook.
Revel’s shift to focusing on charging stations comes amid the increased use of electric vehicles by other ride-share companies. Revel says it is focusing on urban areas where other ride-share companies could use their charging infrastructure. The share of public users of Revel’s charging stations, many from Uber and Lyft, has jumped from 2 percent to 33 percent in the last two years, according to a Revel spokesperson.
The city introduced the Green Rides Initiative in 2024, which mandates that 5 percent of ride-share trips need to be conducted by zero-emission or wheelchair-accessible vehicles. The share of Uber and Lyft trips conducted by electric vehicles more than tripled a few months after the initiative took effect, according to the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission Factbook.
To power this network of vehicles, Revel has planned to install some 2,000 chargers across major urban hubs like Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City by 2030.
The electric vehicle industry has faced slower growth, however, under the Trump administration. And there is uncertainty surrounding a $7,500 federal tax credit to purchase new electric vehicles, which is set to expire next month.
Yiguang Ju, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University, expressed concern about the electric vehicle industry under the Trump administration, and said that Washington should look to shift its focus from fossil fuels to renewables. “Electric vehicles are the future of passenger cars and the industry really needs to be scaled up,” he said.
Urvashi Uberoy is an engineer contributing to The Times’s data-driven journalism.
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