🤷‍♀️ WHAT HAPPENED?

NYC TLC's communication on releasing 600 *NEW* EV FHV Licenses (a/k/a TLC Plates) was good until a disastrous implementation. "Interest" form was active for less than 5 minutes, leaving many confused

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• As expected, the Taxi & Limousine Commission opened a “Statement of Interest” form for *NEW* EV TLC Plates (“First Come, First Served”) on Wednesday at 10am

• The form was inactive within minutes as a, previously undisclosed, preset submission quota (2,500) was reached

• As mentioned by AM, TLC’s “First Come, First Served” protocol was a flawed idea to begin with, regardless of execution success

• AM understands it’s hard to undo process now, but believes TLC should URGENTLY reconsider second EV Plate allocation process, ahead of Wednesday, March 29th

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As expected, the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) opened a “Statement of Interest” form, exclusively for individual TLC drivers, related to new EV FHV Licenses (a/k/a TLC Plates) on a “First Come, First Served” basis, yesterday, Wednesday, March 15th at 10am.

Last week, we wrote the following:

We urge the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission to amend the online “Statement of Interest” submission process ahead of next Wednesdays [15th] online form going “live” & create a mechanism that prioritizes need + merit vs. how quickly one can access a site and click a button.

- AutoMarketplace (March 7th, 2023)

To be fair, it wasn’t only us, other NYC TLC drivers and advocacy groups were bringing up the exact same point. It was easy to predict the “How quick can you click?” 🖱️process wasn’t going to be popular EVEN if executed to perfection. Having bad implementation, on top of a flawed idea, was the recipe for a disaster - this is what happened Wednesday.

As our team reported live on the situation, we saw the initial form being accessible, but within minutes the form going offline 👇. This was confirmed independently by many TLC drivers who reached out to us on public media (newsletter forums, YouTube) and privately.

Below, is a screengrab our team captured at 10:05am.

To underscore how badly the process was executed, the TLC’s own industrywide email, announcing the form being available, was received by many after 10:10am, a full 5 minutes (if not more) after the form was no longer accessible! 🤔 .

Source: Official NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission email, Gmail hosted email account

Furthermore, the TLC seems to think 25,000 unique visitors was a lot or a surprise.

What about that figure is surprising?

This is New York City 🗽🍎🌆, there are over 150,000 active TLC Licensees. The 25,000 figure actually matches up with our estimate of how many active NYC TLC drivers are in leasing arrangements (i.e., ~70% are owner-operators).

NYC TLC @nyctaxi

The TLC EV License website had 25,000 unique visitors this morning! We are evaluating the high demand for these licenses and possible next steps. We're grateful to @nyctaxi staff for working hard to make sure things worked as intended.

Being Constructive

Let’s make one thing clear before we continue. We believe there are two categories of people that are upset about this process.

1. Those who wanted a TLC Plate & are upset they didn’t get one

2. Those who feel the the process was poorly constructed & unfair

We are clearly in camp #2. Obviously, there are people who wanted a TLC Plate, but didn’t get an allocation yesterday. That’s not what this is about. In addition, we congratulate 🥳 those who did manage to get an allocation, or a place on the waitlist!

As much as we think the above process should have been different, it would be unfair of us to question already given allocations. In our view, whoever received a confirmed allocation has the right to keep it, that process CANNOT BE UNDONE now.

So, what can be done?

Below, we are going to make some brief points for the TLC to consider ahead of the Wednesday, March 29th allocation process for the 400 remaining EV TLC Plates.

• ➗ Split The Remaining 400 Plate Allocation. 200 ONLY for individual qualified drivers (same as yesterday) & 200 ONLY for Business Entities

  • Clearly, individual TLC driver demand should be given priority, given the demonstrated demand

  • Individuals shouldn’t be competing with businesses in a “First Come, First Served” submission process that allows up to a 25 allocation per entity (i.e, 16 entities can claim the entire allocation)

• 🧑 200 EV TLC Plates For Individuals Should Have 120 Day EV Requirement

  • The 30 day EV requirement for the *newly proposed* 200 individual driver allocation should be similar to the initial 600 allocation requirements, as it relates to the vehicle

  

  Source: NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission

• 🎲 Individual “Statement of Interest” form should not close based on a quota (i.e., 2,500). ALL QUALIFIED DRIVERS should be given an application ID post submission & TLC should conduct a public lottery (i.e., random selection), based on that ID

  • Surely, creating a protocol based on “How quick can you click?” 🖱️needs to be abandoned given underlying demand

• 🏢 200 EV TLC Plates For Business Entities Should Be Auctioned

  • We’ve outlined our reasoning for this, but it’s also unfair to subject businesses to “How quick can you click?”🖱️.

  • For example, if Revel legitimately got an allocation they will be subject to accusations OR if they don’t get any allocation that also doesn’t make sense given how much money they’ve invested in building out EV infrastructure in NYC

Closing Thoughts

There was, very recently, some welcome news around NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission Chair David Do qualifying for a NYC TLC Drivers License. He wants to experience what it is like to be a City for-hire driver. This isn’t meant to be taken in a nasty way, but rather it is said constructively.

Chair Do, respectfully, if you were subject to the process so many NYC TLC drivers were subject to on Wednesday, how would you feel about the process?

If you were a 10 year TLC “veteran” driver that’s been in a leasing arrangement, who lost out to a newer TLC driver because they clicked a button 45 seconds faster than you, how would that make you feel?

People, including regulators, are allowed to make mistakes (obviously, to an extent). Chair Do is allowed to make a few, every once in a while. You can’t be unfair, importantly that’s a two way street. Not taking ownership and fixing a mistake, when you still can, is less understandable.

As always, let us know your thoughts in the comments section below or by emailing us at info@automarketplace.com.

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AutoMarketplace.com NYC covers the for-hire transportation industry and automotive news. Check out AutoMarketplace.com on YouTube ▶️