One of the leading on-demand ridesharing companies has committed to charging its forthcoming autonomous electric vehicle fleet with electricity from renewable sources.

One of the promises of services such as Lyft and Uber (which are called ridesharing platforms but are more like dispatchers for freelance taxis) is that they will reduce the need for car ownership, and that they will bring down the total number of cars driving in cities, thereby also decreasing vehicular emissions.

The logical next step in that clean transport play is to move to greener cars, such as hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and full electric vehicles, and the one beyond that is using autonomous cars, while the third move looks to be a combination of electric mobility and self-driving cars. But although those steps, in conjunction with things like walkable neighborhoods and clean last-mile vehicles, can help move us forward in terms of a more sustainable transportation model, one of the many environmental elephants in the room is the origin of the energy powering this EV evolution, which in many places is still predominantly fossil fuels.

According to a blog post from Lyft co-founders, the company is committed to using 100% renewable electricity to charge its forthcoming fleet of autonomous electric vehicles, right from the get-go, beginning with the nuTonomy self-driving vehicle pilot program launching in Boston this year.

Read more: Tree Hugger