Uber, the app-based mode of transport favored by millennials worldwide, is battling politics, bad press and claims its disruption of the car-for-hire business presents a danger on the streets, but a partial victory in New York shows the company is more than willing to fight for its future.
Founded just six years ago in San Francisco and now valued at more than $40 billion, Uber ended -- or at least pumped the brakes on -- a feud with the Big Apple, where lawmakers and Mayor Bill de Blasio were threatening to cap the number of drivers allowed on city streets. But in a surprise deal announced late Wednesday, the city agreed to table the limits until completion of a four-month study on whether Uber cars are in fact increasing traffic and harming the environment. The partial cave came after Uber put out an ad showing drivers from a broad racial and ethnic spectrum and pushed back aggressively at the political undertones of the plan.
"There is nothing progressive about protecting millionaire taxi donors who mistreat drivers and discriminate against riders and no amount of name calling by Mayor de Blasio will change that," Uber spokesman Matt McKenna said in a statement to FoxNews.com. "Eventually, the mayor will have to explain why he's against creating 10,000 jobs and protecting reliable rides in communities outside Manhattan."
"There is nothing progressive about protecting millionaire taxi donors who mistreat drivers and discriminate against riders and no amount of name calling by Mayor de Blasio will change that."- Uber spokesman Matt McKenna
Uber officials say they are unleashing the entrepreneurial drive of thousands, and the company's supporters noted that de Blasio's 2013 mayoral campaign received $250,000 in direct contributions from the taxi industry. But the fight against New York's well-organized taxi lobby could provide a blueprint for skirmishes across the country and around the world. Critics in government and the private sector alike believe the company profits mainly by operating outside the reach of regulation, undercutting taxis, limos and even mass transit, while clogging streets.
Uber has vowed to defend its business model with hard data, which it mined for the New York dust-up.
"Mayor de Blasio said he wanted a 'data driven approach,' when, in reality, his approach has been to hide the data that shows his policies are flat out wrong," Uber's New York General Manager Josh Mohrer said Wednesday, before the deal was struck.
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