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> (drivers were already losing money at this point, but Uber relied on their unfamiliarity with capital depreciation calculations to hide this). If you do the
by walrus01 5y ago
> (drivers were already losing money at this point, but Uber relied on their unfamiliarity with capital depreciation calculations to hide this).
If you do the math on the fully loaded cost to purchase, insure, maintain, fuel and park a late model sedan in a major city, relative to how quickly taxi-like usage wears out a car, the Uber drivers are often working for barely above minimum wage.
Their business model (and that of Lyft) relies upon there being a large pool of people who for whatever reason own a rapidly depreciating $25-30,000 asset such as a Toyota Camry, and will consume its lifespan/wear it out to make what looks like a decent hourly wage. But it's not.
- supernovae 5y agoIf I was the CEO, instead of thinking i could pull off self-driving cars, I would have gone with some lease/buy/discount program with Tesla and Model 3s - incentivizing an electric fleet as much as possible. I would have boosted the charging station capacity or invested in quick charger convenience areas. I would have also invested in partnering quick quickbooks, to have accounting/expense tracking built in or stupid easy. depreciating assets are normal, but leaving the world to fend for themselves on how to write that expense off was their big problem IMHO
- mandelbrotwurst 5y agoUber does have partnerships through which they offer expense tracking apps to their drivers.
- pwinnski 5y agoAs the article suggests, the CEO never actually thought they could pull off self-driving cars. That was part of the shell game that is Uber.
- shaftway 5y agoThey did have a lease/buy program. It was demonstrably worse than just leasing a vehicle directly (Uber would take a cut) and there were ugly questions around what happened if you stopped driving for Uber.
- nradov 5y agoUber does have partnership programs where drivers can rent a vehicle with maintenance and insurance included. So the driver basically only pays for fuel. I don't know how that works out in terms of hourly wages. https://www.uber.com/us/en/drive/vehicle-solutions/hertz/ https://www.uber.com/us/en/drive/vehicle-solutions/hertz/
- ac29 5y ago"$264 per week plus taxes, fees, gas, and other additional charges" Or, a little less than $14,000/year before fuel costs. I do wonder how much extra those taxes, fees, and "additional charges" add up to though.
- tomjen3 5y agoI have long been suspecious that being an Uber driver makes sense if you can do it as an extra job and only do it on friday and saturday nights and in crappy weather. You are putting the same wear on the car, but the prices are much higher.