4 ms·

Quick and dirty math. Let's say a new Kia Soul has 200K miles of useful (as an uber car) and costs $20K USD. The driver drives 2500 miles per month, getting 2

Quick and dirty math. Let's say a new Kia Soul has 200K miles of useful (as an uber car) and costs $20K USD. The driver drives 2500 miles per month, getting 25 miles per gallon $4/gallon. Insurance is $100/month. And every 5000 miles there's $100 of maintenance to do. 20,000 USD / 200,000 miles - 10 cents per mile. 200,000 miles / 25 mpg = 8000 gallons 8000 gallons * $4/gallon = $32,000 $32,000 USD / 200,000 = 16 cents per mile 200,000 miles / 2500 miles/month = 80 months 80 months * 100 insurance/month = $8000 $8,000 / 200,000 miles = 4 cents per mile (200,000 miles / 5000 miles) * $100 maintenance = $4000 $8000 maintenance / 200,000 miles = 2 cents per mile 10 + 16 + 4 + 2 = 32 cents per mile. That's my best guess while typing on my phone in a Chipotle. 32 cents sounds like best case, so 50 cents seems like a conservative & realistic plan. Cars have ways of eating ones money in expected ways, and I didn't account for costs associated with driving for Uber/Lyft, such as needing a good cell phone plan, self employment taxes, etc. Did I make any math errors? Anyone wanna tweak those numbers to be more realistic?

ams6110 9y ago
Need to include interest on the $20,000 purchase. Most Uber drivers aren't buying new cars for cash. Even if they are, it's fair to include the opportunity cost.
- astura 9y ago
  A five year $15,000 loan @2.5% interest is $972.63 interest over the life of the loan. Round it up to an even $1,000. You also should count sales tax, which looks like 7.5% in California,so an extra $1,500 total. Those are fixed costs but your car won't last nearly as long if you drive for Uber vs if you don't. You also don't have the choice of driving your car into the ground if you want to continue to drive for Uber.
  - bunderbunder 9y ago
    According to Bankrate, 2.5% interest isn't a reasonable assumption these days. Looks like it's more like 4.5%, and I presume that's assuming you have really good credit. That said, even at 6%, you're only looking at $1,172 over the life of a 5 year loan, so I agree that it's a fairly negligible difference for the purposes of this calculation.
    - astura 9y ago
      I was going with best case with perfect credit. My credit union offers 2% loans - https://www.navyfederal.org/products-services/loans/auto/auto-rates.php https://www.navyfederal.org/products-services/loans/auto/aut... those are 36 month loans though. You're right I probably should have done average case.
    - softawre 9y ago
      I just got a new 30k Kia for 2.2% with 5k bonus cash. They also offered 0% and 3k bonus cash but taking the extra cash was better for me.
BeetleB 9y ago
Gas is not that expensive in most parts of the country. It's been a while since it hit $3/gallon where I live. That portion likely should be 10-12 cents/mile. Maintenance/repairs is always hard to predict...
- amorphid 9y ago
  True. Gas prices can be spikey, and a few years ago I was paying over $5/gallon, so I went up a bit.
- karthikb 9y ago
  But it does tend to be more expensive in cities, which is where these cars operate more.
emmelaich 9y ago
You should make a phone app to calculate income for Uber and Lyft drivers.
- amorphid 9y ago
  That would be a pretty interesting tool.
- SilasX 9y ago
  I imagine that the tricky part is getting it to plug in to all the relevant information for the calculation. Uber won't let anything actually pull data from the app, and the driver would have to make sure to mark their mileage at the beginning and end of a shift so they can plug in the "amount driven". (They can't just copy over Uber's figure, which would only tell them paid miles driven.) You'd also want it to calculate the after-tax income, which would depend on their estimated income from other sources. If you could get that to work, though, I imagine you'd see a quick exodus.
  - jsjohnst 9y ago
    Uber does have a public API, not sure if it includes the stuff you need though.
trophycase 9y ago
I wouldn't say that's best case. A Prius basically doubles the gas mileage you've listed here.
- dopamean 9y ago
  And the cost of the vehicle too no?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
xyzzyz 9y ago
I think you definitely underestimate the maintenance cost. For example, you’ll probably need to replace the tires at least 4-5 times in those 200k miles, which will set you back around $800-900 each time. You will also need to replace clutch plate, brake pads, likely battery etc, and you are likely to end up needing to repair something in these 200k miles. I’d add at least $5000 to maintenance cost, and likely more.
- dnautics 9y ago
  Discount tire/America's best tire will cert your tires in which case you won't be spending that much money at all. Over the course of 1.5 years driving for Lyft I had about 12 tire changes, each one going for about $30.
dnautics 9y ago
Real experience:. I made about 90k over 1.5 years of driving for Uber/Lyft. Much maintenance I did myself, and took my car (Honda insight, 30mpg city/45 highway) from 70k to about 260k. Obviously this paid for itself (~16k) and rent in the expensive bay area, and some. I don't know if it's as lucrative as it used to be, and I was also very very good at it. Usually ~50-75% of my fares were not at base rate.

ams6110 9y ago

Need to include interest on the $20,000 purchase. Most Uber drivers aren't buying new cars for cash. Even if they are, it's fair to include the opportunity cost.

astura 9y ago
A five year $15,000 loan @2.5% interest is $972.63 interest over the life of the loan. Round it up to an even $1,000. You also should count sales tax, which looks like 7.5% in California,so an extra $1,500 total. Those are fixed costs but your car won't last nearly as long if you drive for Uber vs if you don't. You also don't have the choice of driving your car into the ground if you want to continue to drive for Uber.
- bunderbunder 9y ago
  According to Bankrate, 2.5% interest isn't a reasonable assumption these days. Looks like it's more like 4.5%, and I presume that's assuming you have really good credit. That said, even at 6%, you're only looking at $1,172 over the life of a 5 year loan, so I agree that it's a fairly negligible difference for the purposes of this calculation.
  - astura 9y ago
    I was going with best case with perfect credit. My credit union offers 2% loans - https://www.navyfederal.org/products-services/loans/auto/auto-rates.php https://www.navyfederal.org/products-services/loans/auto/aut... those are 36 month loans though. You're right I probably should have done average case.
  - softawre 9y ago
    I just got a new 30k Kia for 2.2% with 5k bonus cash. They also offered 0% and 3k bonus cash but taking the extra cash was better for me.

BeetleB 9y ago

Gas is not that expensive in most parts of the country. It's been a while since it hit $3/gallon where I live. That portion likely should be 10-12 cents/mile. Maintenance/repairs is always hard to predict...

amorphid 9y ago
True. Gas prices can be spikey, and a few years ago I was paying over $5/gallon, so I went up a bit.
karthikb 9y ago
But it does tend to be more expensive in cities, which is where these cars operate more.

emmelaich 9y ago

You should make a phone app to calculate income for Uber and Lyft drivers.

amorphid 9y ago
That would be a pretty interesting tool.
SilasX 9y ago
I imagine that the tricky part is getting it to plug in to all the relevant information for the calculation. Uber won't let anything actually pull data from the app, and the driver would have to make sure to mark their mileage at the beginning and end of a shift so they can plug in the "amount driven". (They can't just copy over Uber's figure, which would only tell them paid miles driven.) You'd also want it to calculate the after-tax income, which would depend on their estimated income from other sources. If you could get that to work, though, I imagine you'd see a quick exodus.
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  Uber does have a public API, not sure if it includes the stuff you need though.

trophycase 9y ago

I wouldn't say that's best case. A Prius basically doubles the gas mileage you've listed here.

dopamean 9y ago
And the cost of the vehicle too no?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

xyzzyz 9y ago

I think you definitely underestimate the maintenance cost. For example, you’ll probably need to replace the tires at least 4-5 times in those 200k miles, which will set you back around $800-900 each time. You will also need to replace clutch plate, brake pads, likely battery etc, and you are likely to end up needing to repair something in these 200k miles. I’d add at least $5000 to maintenance cost, and likely more.

dnautics 9y ago
Discount tire/America's best tire will cert your tires in which case you won't be spending that much money at all. Over the course of 1.5 years driving for Lyft I had about 12 tire changes, each one going for about $30.

dnautics 9y ago

Real experience:. I made about 90k over 1.5 years of driving for Uber/Lyft. Much maintenance I did myself, and took my car (Honda insight, 30mpg city/45 highway) from 70k to about 260k. Obviously this paid for itself (~16k) and rent in the expensive bay area, and some. I don't know if it's as lucrative as it used to be, and I was also very very good at it. Usually ~50-75% of my fares were not at base rate.