4 ms·

How do you know this much about the market?

by Jommi 8y ago

alkonaut 8y ago
About the Stockholm Taxi market? I live there and follow local news, and have some interest in the area, that's it. Regular taxi drivers aren't paid that much and those companies offer everything Uber offers: app haul/pay, nice cars and so on, so if Uber don't have an edge anywhere either legally, technologically or economically (e.g use contractors instead of employees, be the only one to offer nice apps, have greater scale scale, adaptive pricing) then they aren't going to make a large margin. I might be wrong though but this is my guess. Companies that have good margins without tax fraud tend to not do tax fraud.
- Jommi 8y ago
  Don't you have to pay high startup costs to be a driver in stockholm? As far as I know it's a completely different setup with Taxi companies and their hired drivers that work on comission, compared to Uber that works with private contractors. Do you need a company to start earning money as a cab driver?
  - alkonaut 8y ago
    Startup costs depends on what way you do it. Own company would be most expensive but a regular taxi driver just works for one of the big taxi companies and owns their car or shares it with someone to het higher utilization. Simplest and cheapest with least risk (and least profit) would be working for an established company using a car owned by someone else. Note that in Stockholm Uber is a regular licensed taxi company. Any taxi company can operate like Uber and vice versa.
    - Jommi 8y ago
      So all someone needs to drive in Sweden is this Taxi Driver license? Then they can just jump in their car and start earning?
      - alkonaut 8y ago
        Yes. It's a driver job like any other (bus license for bus, taxi license for taxi, truck license for trucks...). Most companies probably have cars unused at times. E.g. if you are a student and want to make some extra money it's usually easy to get a weekend job using someone elses car when that driver is off anyway. That way you can make some money without a big investment in a car.
        Jommi 8y ago
        so you can't just drive your own car? That's exactly what Uber is about.
        alkonaut 8y ago
        You can use any car as a taxi, but to use for commercial driving your car needs to be just that - a taxi. So you’d spend say $1-2k to register it as a taxi (new license plates, install a meter). So there are hundreds of taxi companies and Uber is just one and like all the others. Uber cars are registered with the vehicle authority as taxis and have regular meters.
        Jommi 8y ago
        So I just checked this out and you are a bitoff Here is what Uber lists as requirements: https://www.uber.com/en-SE/drive/requirements/ https://www.uber.com/en-SE/drive/requirements/ Meaning that you can either: 1. Get taxi driver license and driver for a fleet for a certain % to take home. This basically means that Uber is just one of the systems you use to get customers. 2. Get a taxi driver license, a sole trader company (1 person company) and a taxi operating license. This means you are a contractor for Uber, and pay the 25% comission. --> You do not need a meter --> You do need a specific insurance for taxi business. So basically if Uber runs a fleet of contractors, it's massively more important than having taxi companies that operate phone-based (as well as app-based) ordering systems. They have massively more overhead than the tiny operations office that Uber needs to operate in any certain city.

How do you know this much about the market?

by Jommi 8y ago

How do you know this much about the market?

About the Stockholm Taxi market? I live there and follow local news, and have some interest in the area, that's it. Regular taxi drivers aren't paid that much and those companies offer everything Uber offers: app haul/pay, nice cars and so on, so if Uber don't have an edge anywhere either legally, technologically or economically (e.g use contractors instead of employees, be the only one to offer nice apps, have greater scale scale, adaptive pricing) then they aren't going to make a large margin. I might be wrong though but this is my guess. Companies that have good margins without tax fraud tend to not do tax fraud.

Jommi 8y ago
Don't you have to pay high startup costs to be a driver in stockholm? As far as I know it's a completely different setup with Taxi companies and their hired drivers that work on comission, compared to Uber that works with private contractors. Do you need a company to start earning money as a cab driver?
- alkonaut 8y ago
  Startup costs depends on what way you do it. Own company would be most expensive but a regular taxi driver just works for one of the big taxi companies and owns their car or shares it with someone to het higher utilization. Simplest and cheapest with least risk (and least profit) would be working for an established company using a car owned by someone else. Note that in Stockholm Uber is a regular licensed taxi company. Any taxi company can operate like Uber and vice versa.
  - Jommi 8y ago
    So all someone needs to drive in Sweden is this Taxi Driver license? Then they can just jump in their car and start earning?
    - alkonaut 8y ago
      Yes. It's a driver job like any other (bus license for bus, taxi license for taxi, truck license for trucks...). Most companies probably have cars unused at times. E.g. if you are a student and want to make some extra money it's usually easy to get a weekend job using someone elses car when that driver is off anyway. That way you can make some money without a big investment in a car.
      - Jommi 8y ago
        so you can't just drive your own car? That's exactly what Uber is about.
        alkonaut 8y ago
        You can use any car as a taxi, but to use for commercial driving your car needs to be just that - a taxi. So you’d spend say $1-2k to register it as a taxi (new license plates, install a meter). So there are hundreds of taxi companies and Uber is just one and like all the others. Uber cars are registered with the vehicle authority as taxis and have regular meters.
        Jommi 8y ago
        So I just checked this out and you are a bitoff Here is what Uber lists as requirements: https://www.uber.com/en-SE/drive/requirements/ https://www.uber.com/en-SE/drive/requirements/ Meaning that you can either: 1. Get taxi driver license and driver for a fleet for a certain % to take home. This basically means that Uber is just one of the systems you use to get customers. 2. Get a taxi driver license, a sole trader company (1 person company) and a taxi operating license. This means you are a contractor for Uber, and pay the 25% comission. --> You do not need a meter --> You do need a specific insurance for taxi business. So basically if Uber runs a fleet of contractors, it's massively more important than having taxi companies that operate phone-based (as well as app-based) ordering systems. They have massively more overhead than the tiny operations office that Uber needs to operate in any certain city.