Lyft Allows Vegan Leather Seats in Luxury Vehicles After PETA Appeal

Rideshare Company No Longer Requires Animal-Skin Car Seats From Lyft Premier Drivers

For Immediate Release:
May 4, 2017

Contact:
Sophia Charchuk 202-483-7382

Following a letter from PETA to Lyft CEO Logan Green informing him of the devastating impact that leather production has on communities, animals, and the environment, the socially conscious transportation start-up changed its leather-only seating requirement to include vegan leather in high-end Lyft Premier vehicles.

Plush, high-performing vegan leathers are already used by many luxury automakers, including Tesla, Ferrari, and Mercedes-Benz.

“By expanding the seating parameters for its luxury vehicles to include vegan leather, Lyft has made a kind decision to become a more animal-friendly company,” says PETA Director Anne Brainard. “PETA looks forward to a day when animal-free leather is the go-to material for all car manufacturers and rideshare services, and Lyft has just taken an important step in that direction.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—notes that it takes an average of three cows’ hides to cover the interior of one standard car. A PETA video exposé revealed that gentle cows and bulls were branded on the face, electroshocked, and beaten before finally being slaughtered to be made into the leather interiors offered by the world’s largest car companies. Turning animals’ skin into leather requires the use of 130 different chemicals, including cyanide, and leather production produces massive amounts of the carbon emissions that contribute to climate change.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.