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Helping cities and businesses build EV charging where it’s needed

Leading cities around the world know that getting EV (electric vehicle) charging infrastructure right can accelerate mobility electrification* and economic growth.** However, governments and industry face many challenges when determining how much charging is needed and where it should go. In fact, research shows the downsides of building poorly located, underused charging.

At Uber, we’re fully committed to going electric, and we recognise that charging remains a top challenge for cities and drivers alike. That’s why we’re excited to introduce EVIE, Uber’s Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Estimator, an interactive analytics tool that uses recent real-world data from Uber drivers and trips to generate city heatmaps showing future scenarios of charging demand—how much and where—from EV rideshare drivers.

“Tools like Uber’s EVIE play a key role in helping cities plan for an electric future. By providing insights into future charging demand, EVIE can assist city practitioners to make informed and equitable investments in public infrastructure. We are pleased to work with Uber on this tool and beyond on the road to zero emissions.”
—Cassie Sutherland, Managing Director, Climate Solutions & Networks, C40 Cities

How EVIE, our EV Infrastructure Estimator, works

By leveraging real-world data, EVIE can help governments and businesses take some of the guesswork out of EV infrastructure planning. It aggregates data collected during the normal course of business on Uber—from millions of drivers and billions of trips—to generate heatmaps showing areas of high-potential EV charging demand.

The Estimator provides insights into where, how many, and which types of chargers (slow- or fast-charging) could best serve future EV drivers on Uber. City agencies, utilities, and businesses can use EVIE to inform how they invest in, build, and manage urban EV charging solutions.

EVIE focuses on 2 types of charging demand:

EVIE scenario data for the Richmond upon Thames and Wandsworth boroughs of London,
captured on 23 June 2025, at 9am PT (US). Go to EVIE Terms of Use.
.

Near-trip demand

Areas where Uber EV drivers may look to top up or fully charge between dropping off and picking up riders. We’d expect public rapid-charging infrastructure to be a likely solution for meeting this demand, helping EV drivers and fleets minimise downtime from revenue-generating service.

Near-home demand

Areas where Uber EV drivers may need a full charge at the end of a day or a long session of providing trips. The best solutions to meet this demand will vary by city and neighbourhood. For example, overnight slow-charging solutions tend to offer drivers the lowest-cost electricity options. In residential areas with more detached houses, charging at home may work best. In higher-density areas with more multi-unit housing, a range of solutions may be required, including slow charging in car parks and at the kerbside, as well as additional fast-charging stations in the neighbourhood.

“Uber’s EVIE tool provides valuable insights to guide our EV charger deployment—helping identify where and how many chargers are needed. It can be a key asset for future planning and research.”
—Karen Apple, EV Programme Manager, Office of Sustainability, City of Phoenix

Rideshare drivers can increase the benefits of EV charging

A little charging for private hire drivers can go a long way. Research shows that while ridesharing represents only a tiny fraction of cars on the road, EV private hire drivers can bring a lot of utilisation to EV charging sites—as much as a 10-fold increase, according to one operator.

Even better, further research shows that when private hire drivers go electric, they can deliver 3 times more clean air benefits to their community compared with drivers in the general public.

How cities are using EVIE

Uber is working with cities to share EVIE data. The tool is designed to improve the efficiency of planning EV charging infrastructure.

Find out more in our article about how Uber used EVIE to assess EV charging needs for rideshare drivers in Greater Boston.

Read the article
EVIE scenario data for the Dorchester and Mattapan neighbourhoods of Greater Boston,
captured on 23 June 2025, at 1pm PT (US). Go to EVIE Terms of Use.
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Getting started

We’re sharing EVIE with employees of government agencies, utilities, and energy companies who are actively working to develop EV charging infrastructure.

If you received an invitation from Uber to access EVIE:

  1. Create an Uber account at Uber.com using your work email address
  2. Uber will notify you once your account has been onboarded to EVIE
  3. Select Launch EVIE below
  4. Sign in to your Uber account using your work email
  5. Acknowledge EVIE’s Terms of Use, and start using EVIE
Launch EVIE
EVIE scenario data for downtown Lisbon and Almada, Portugal,
captured on 23 June 2025 at 1pm PT (US). Go to EVIE Terms of Use.
.

Frequently asked questions

  • Invited users can access EVIE with an active Uber account after acknowledging the Terms of Use. We’re sharing EVIE with employees of government agencies, utilities, and energy companies who are actively working to develop EV charging infrastructure. Go to the “Getting started” section of this page for steps to take.

  • To access EVIE, users need to be invited, have an active Uber account, and acknowledge our Terms of Use. Go to the “Getting started” section of this page for more information. Contact evie-support@uber.com to recommend colleagues who are actively working on EV charging infrastructure in your city.

  • EVIE access is free for invited users.

  • Please review the latest Terms of Use for details.

  • EVIE currently includes 40 metro regions globally—covering nearly 60% of battery EV drivers on Uber around the world—each often including many cities and municipalities. Please send an email to evie-support@uber.com to find out if your city is one of them. EVIE does not include every global city and can only generate EV charging demand scenarios for metro areas where Uber operates and observes a sufficient amount of user activity.

  • EVIE produces urban heatmaps that forecast EV charging demand scenarios by future EV drivers on Uber. For any given scenario, output consists of 2 components: where EV charging demand may occur, shown across a grid of hexagons using the open-source H3 index, and the amount of EV charging that may be demanded. The amount of charging shown differs according to the display mode:

    • Near-trip: This displays both the number of fast-charging (Level 3, or L3) ports required to fulfil the peak hourly expected electricity demand and the daily total electricity demand (in kilowatt-hours, per day)

    • Near-home: This displays the number of slow-charging (Level 2, or L2) ports required to fulfil expected overnight demand

    For more details, read EVIE’s technical methodology.

  • H3 is a geospatial indexing system that divides the world into hexagonal cells. Engineers at Uber developed H3 and made it open source under the Apache 2.0 licence.

  • Yes. The tool supports CSV (comma-separated values) file downloads. The CSV data has an H3 index to support various geospatial analysis tools.

  • Yes. Users can interact with the data visually and adjust key assumptions to generate multiple scenarios. For example, users can:

    • Zoom and pan to better explore EV charging demand scenarios across cities and wider metropolitan areas
    • Toggle between near-trip and near-home demand scenarios (find more information above)
    • Adjust the assumed ratio of charging demand met by EV rideshare drivers between at or near home versus near trip
    • Adjust the assumed future level of battery EV uptake by Uber drivers to anywhere between 25% and 100% of trip miles completed (you can find data on current levels and historic trends of Uber driver EV uptake for key regions here)

  • No. The current version is based on drivers who are eligible for ride journeys. In some cities, some drivers may also complete delivery journeys, but these generally make up a fraction of all drivers and journeys.

The images and information contained herein and in EVIE are for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon to make any business or policy decisions. Use of EVIE is governed by the EVIE Terms of Use.

*California: “The impact of EV charging stations on light-duty EV adoption in California,” Centre for Sustainable Energy (June 2023), energycenter.org/thought-leadership/research-and-reports/impact-ev-charging-stations-light-duty-ev-adoption. EU: “Assessing the impacts of electric vehicle recharging infrastructure deployment efforts in the European Union,” MDPI Energies (22 June 2019), doi.org/10.3390/en12122409. Germany: “Public charging infrastructure and the market diffusion of electric vehicles,” Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment (September 2020), doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2020.102413. Norway: “Technology adoption and early network infrastructure provision in the market for electric vehicles,” Environmental and Resource Economics (7 July 2022), doi.org/10.1007/s10640-022-00703-z. US: “The role of demand-side incentives and charging infrastructure on plug-in electric vehicle adoption: analysis of US states,” Environmental Research Letters (13 July 2018), iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aad0f8.

**"Estimating the economic impact of electric vehicle charging stations,” Argonne National Laboratory (16 March 2022), anl.gov/article/estimating-the-economic-impact-of-electric-vehicle-charging-stations. “Study: EV charging stations boost spending at nearby businesses,” MIT News (4 September 2024), news.mit.edu/2024/study-ev-charging-stations-boost-nearby-business-spending-0904.