In the Media

NYC Ride-Hailing, Taxi Turf War Stalls Revel’s EV Push

July 1, 2021

Member and Financial Services Compliance attorney Jason Bichsel was quoted in a June 29 Law360 article regarding the recent New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission vote to eliminate a provision exempting electric vehicles from 2018 regulations that capped the number of new for-hire vehicle licenses issued to drivers of app-based ride-hailing providers. The vote underscores challenges cities have in balancing the myriad concerns of the legacy taxicab industry with app-based urban mobility companies.

“It underscores that anybody who has gotten a share of the mobility services industry in whatever respect, if there’s an opportunity to use local regulation to retain that market share, [then] it seems that they’re willing to do it,” said Jason Bichsel of McGlinchey Stafford PLLC. “You have a regulator looking to preserve what is a good source of income for residents of the city of New York, and I think it looks forward. It’s less about electric-vehicle car-sharing, but what’s going to be the impact of vehicle autonomy on these types of workers.”

“As we get into these gray areas — whether it be car and ride-sharing, vehicle subscription services or flexible leasing options — we’re going to see that the closer these things get to being a rental car program, the more that municipal ordinances and regulations come into play [and] that patchwork is interesting but also difficult for companies to manage,” Bichsel said.

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