California
HopSkipDrive beats new California ridesharing emissions targets | TechCrunch
Youth rideshare startup HopSkipDrive beat two key new California emissions standards in 2023, an accomplishment the company believes will bolster its case for relying more on shared passenger vehicles to get kids and teens to and from school.
The company tells TechCrunch that electric vehicles drove 8% of all miles the platform in the state last year, 400% more than the 2% target set by California’s Air Resources Board (CARB). Total emissions for the year in California were 240 grams of carbon dioxide per passenger mile, comfortably under the 252 grams-per-mile benchmark.
It’s a feather in the cap but also an added selling point for the decade-old company, which has had to remake itself a few times over the years as it faces increased competition — including from Uber — and new challenges, like a recent data breach.
One of those evolutions came during the pandemic. That’s when CEO Joanna McFarland says her team pushed to build its own strategic route planning software for schools using machine learning, creating a new business line adjacent to the rideshare offering.
The goal was to help make school transportation networks more efficient and also alleviate driver shortage concerns. While drivers must have five years of child care experience, they don’t need the commercial license required to operate a school bus.
“We can be more than just a care-centered transportation marketplace,” McFarland remembers thinking. “We can really solve these school transportation challenges and help lead school transportation into a newer, cleaner era.”
The targets HopSkipDrive cleared were established as part of CARB’s Clean Miles Standard and Incentive Program, which was passed in 2018 in an effort to clean up the fleets of so-called Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) like Uber and Lyft. That regulation went into effect in 2023, and TNCs like HopSkipDrive are required to submit their results later this year.
HopSkipDrive beat the targets for two reasons, McFarland says. First, California already has a fairly high rate of electric vehicle adoption, thanks to a mix of regulatory policy and economic incentives. In fact, HopSkipDrive says 36% of all vehicles that completed a ride in California last year were electric, hybrid, or fuel cell.
The second is the route planning software. “That dramatically reduces the number of miles driven and the amount of emissions,” she said, because “many school districts have very inefficient routes.”
“Anytime you have less than 12 kids on a school bus, a better option is actually to put those kids into sedans, and that reduces the emissions, that reduces mileage, and makes the entire operation more efficient,” she said.
That may seem counterintuitive at a time when the Biden administration is lining up a billion dollars in federal funding for schools to adopt electric buses. But in some cases, those buses won’t be ready immediately. And while a billion dollars is a lot of money, it won’t buy clean school buses for every district in the country.
Besides, McFarland says, “how our kids are getting to school has changed dramatically over the last 30 years.” Urban planning fans may cringe at the thought of slow-moving multi-lane dropoff and pickup lines, but funding for electric buses isn’t going to inspire those schools — or parents — to immediately change their ways, she says.
“It’s a great thing that is happening. It’s going to take a little bit longer than I think some of the excitement that is surrounding it,” she says. “I think what we offer is a real way to accelerate that, and accelerate districts meeting some of their goals that they won’t be able to without services like ours.”
McFarland says the flexibility of passenger vehicles is helpful for students who are experiencing homelessness, or in foster care, or going through any other situation where they have to move around a lot. She says kids are also more open to carpooling, a feature that has struggled to catch on with the big rideshare services like Uber and Lyft.
“These increased individualized needs are really wreaking havoc on a fixed route school bus model,” she says. “We can really solve the school transportation crisis in this country and do it in a way that makes far more sense is better for our families, it’s better for our communities, and it’s better for our schools.”
California GOP delegates Roxanne Hoge and Elizabeth Barcohana join Trace Gallagher to discuss multiple issues impacting California.
California GOP delegates Roxanne Hoge and Elizabeth Barcohana dissect the state’s pressing issues with Trace Gallagher. They criticize the SF Giants’ ‘Pride Night’ controversy and players’ right to religious expression. The delegates also discuss Los Angeles’s economic decline and Sacramento’s expensive homeless campsite, highlighting concerns about over-regulation and social issues. They conclude by addressing California’s large-scale Medicaid fraud, suggesting a lack of accountability.
Oakdale’s first Pride event is moving forward this weekend after organizers changed venues following pushback over its original location and a planned drag performance.
Some residents pushed back over the event’s original location at Dorada Park and a planned drag performance.
“I also understand staff has issued a permit for a so-called Pride event,” one speaker said during the latest City Council meeting.
Another speaker raised concerns about the event being advertised as open to all ages, including children, and having a drag queen host.
After the public pushback, organizers moved the event indoors to the Bianchi Center.
“It was a huge upgrade to be able to provide a more accessible space in the heart of Oakdale,” said Ryan Hall, president of CalPride.
Hall said the idea to bring Pride to the city did not come from outside Oakdale, it came from people living there.
“That’s my place as a mom of rainbow kids, absolutely,” said Elizabeth May, owner of Sisters Coffee.
May’s coffee shop hosts a monthly LGBTQ+ social.
“I had a young man walk in here and say, ‘We don’t have anywhere to have a social here for LGBTQ.’ I said, ‘Heck yes,’” May said.
Still, the backlash has left parents like May concerned.
“How does it feel? Scary. I’m excited, but as a mom of a kid in the community, I’m nervous for them,” May said.
May said the venue change helped ease some of the tension.
“The different venue made a win-win situation for everyone. I was very proud of the kids for making that hard decision,” May said.
For organizers, the drag performance is part of the celebration.
“Enjoy some line dancing, enjoy some live music, enjoy the drag show, and then also enjoy community members and our local businesses, our local artists and partner organizations,” Hall said.
Oakdale Pride is scheduled for Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Entry is free.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is considering a run for president as he approaches the end of his term, called for a national “billionaires’ tax” on Friday even as he fights another proposal targeting the wealthy in his home state.
Newsom also said the U.S. government should own a stake in artificial intelligence companies. His proposals, outlined in a Substack post, aligns him with the Democratic Party’s populist left, and he argued that urgent changes are needed to prevent the elite concentration of wealth and power from undermining democracy.
“It’s time for an economic reset for America,” Newsom wrote.
The governor announced his agenda a day after an influential health care union in California pledged to go forward with a ballot measure that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the assets of billionaires living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026.
Newsom opposes that measure, as do many of the liberal interest groups that typically favor higher taxes. They fear it would drive billionaires out of California, eroding the state’s tax base over the long term for a one-time influx of cash. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other state — a few hundred, by some estimates.
“You may not be able to pick up and move to Texas or Florida to shelter your income from taxation, but I promise you that billionaires can, and do,” Newsom wrote. “Wealth is movable, and it shops for the state with the lowest taxes. The fight belongs at the federal level, where this broken system was created in the first place.”
A minimum tax on large net worths
Newsom said the solution is a new national tax policy, rather than a state-by-state system. He proposed a minimum tax on anyone with a net worth above $100 million. He also wants to make it illegal for the wealthy to borrow against their stock portfolios to fund their luxury lifestyles tax free.
Newsom said there should be new rules for inheritance taxes, warning that “the transfer of wealth among the ultra-wealthy will lock in a permanent American aristocracy of inherited wealth.” And he wants to raise corporate tax rates to where they were before President Donald Trump’s first-term tax cut.
READ MORE: Sanders and Newsom clash over proposed tax on California’s billionaires
The need is especially urgent as artificial intelligence threatens to displace workers and further concentrate wealth, he wrote.
“We need to ensure every American owns a stake in the future being built by AI through a national public equity fund that takes a major stake in the new economy,” he wrote. “Simply, as artificial intelligence reshapes the country, every American should own a piece of the future it builds.”
Revenue generated by his proposals could be used to retrain workers, fund universal child care, make college free and increase funding for health care.
‘Money buys influence’
Newsom, who has drawn attention as one of Trump’s most high-profile political antagonists, is getting an early start on laying out a policy framework for his potential White House bid months before the midterm elections, which have typically marked the informal start of overt presidential campaigning.
WATCH: News Wrap: Newsom says Trump ordering DOJ to investigate him and wife
The embrace of a wealth tax by Newsom, a moderate on tax policy despite his liberal reputation, signals a notable shift in the political landscape since Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren struggled to get traction in her 2020 campaign, which she largely centered around a 2% levy wealth tax.
Newsom portrayed the nation’s tax code as a corrupt system built to help an elite few.
“Money buys influence, and influence rewrites the rules,” he wrote. “Those rewritten rules funnel even more wealth to the few. Under this weight, democracy itself starts to buckle.”
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