Electrify

Boston      Taxi
Mentors : Andrew Salzberg 
Team :  TJ (Tae Joong) Park, Yixin Wu,
Ellie Murphy-Weise, Abhishek Desai


City Advisors: Matt Warfield + Joel Barrera (MassPort)  Paul Shoemaker (Boston Public Health Commission) Daniel Iger (Waave)
Matthew Warfield (Boston Transportation Department) 
 
                                 

We as a team propose to introduce a mandate imposed by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu to switch to fully battery electric vehicle fleets for taxi drivers and operator companies by 2035, following the ban on sale of new gasoline vehicles in Massachusetts also by 2035. The state government would issue up to a $30MM grant to non-profits such as the Way Forward Taxi Alliance, and/or to state agencies such as the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources. This grant would then be distributed in tiered amounts ($2,500 to $50,000) to drivers and operators, dependent upon factors such as their size, minority ownership, and operation in low-income neighborhoods, among others. A $5MM grant from the state government to MassPort would enable benefits such as free charging, reduced access fees, skip-queue at locations such as Logan Airport with headroom to expand this across other facilities and locations throughout the city; this would support the fleet conversion in addition to private investment across the city in charging infrastructure. We propose a $2/ride tax ($1 each from the rider and the operator) for cabs powered by gasoline (including hybrids) to help fund these grants and accelerate the transition.