If you were asked which company or organisation would likely be the next to announce a diesel car scrappage scheme, who would you expect it to be? Most likely, one of the country’s biggest vehicle brands, or perhaps some kind of local/national government incentive.
But you’d also be wrong, as the title of this article has already given it away!
Coming entirely out of the blue, the incredibly popular public transport app Uber has announced its plan to help tackle the growing air pollution crisis in London. Over the coming years, the company intends to get at least 1,000 of the most polluting vehicles working for the brand off the city’s roads, once and for all. And in order to encourage drivers to upgrade to cleaner cars, they will be offering incentives worth £1,500 to the first 1,000 people to take advantage of the scheme.
Which means that in total, they’re planning to give £1.5 million away to customers as part of this particular scheme.
But what makes things all the more interesting is the way in which all the drivers in question have to do to receive this £1,500 is to scrap their diesel vehicle and submit the certificate they subsequently receive. After which, they will be provided with £1,500 credit to spend on Uber or UberPool rides.
Uber has already announced its intention to have its entire fleet operating with no petrol or diesel cars whatsoever, within the next decade or so. And in order to encourage drivers even more vigorously to upgrade, they’re also offering up to £5,000 toward the costs of doing so.
On the whole, the company has stated that it will be spending far more than £150 million on the combined incentives, having set its sights on making a real difference to the air pollution problem in London.
“Air pollution is a growing problem and we’re determined to play our part in tackling it,” said Fred Jones, Uber’s head of UK cities.
“Londoners already know many cars on our app are hybrids, but we want to go much further and go all electric in the capital. Our scrappage scheme will also take polluting vehicles off the road and encourage Londoners to get into a shared car to connect with public transport instead.”
Once again, advocates have spoken out in unanimous praise for Uber’s decision to up the ante with an additional scrappage incentive. But at the same time, it hasn’t escaped the attention of environment containers that the government is yet to introduce any widespread initiatives or incentives of its own. Despite having promised to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars within the next couple of decades, no information as yet been provided as to whether or not incentives will be offered.
It remains to be seen how successful or otherwise Uber’s scheme will be, but initial interest across London is said to have been very reassuring.
