6 ms·

How much does a Lyft driver earn?

48 points by hangonhn 13y ago

giorgosts 13y ago
1. In most places it is illegal to provide transport for a fee without a special state-provided license. 2. There are also special legal requirements from the driver, e.g. taxi drivers license. 3. Insurance requirements are different and order of magnitude higher for vehicles that provide such transport. 4. In case of accidents/fatalities or police stops, who bears responsibility/liability? The car owner, the company, the insurer, all of the above? How much danger of arrest/confiscation/huge fines is the driver in? Does lyft indemnify their business partners against such incidents? 5. The drivers earnings should be the least concern for folks who sign up for this scheme
FaceKicker 13y ago
> According to this Consumer Reports article, “the median car costs more than $9,100 a year to own” over the first five years of ownership driving 12,000 miles a year. That means the median cars costs about 76 cents per mile driven ($9100/12000). I’m just guessing that I’ll average a speed of 30 miles/hour while I’m doing my Lyft job. So my expenses will come to about $22.80 per hour (0.76*30). Doesn't that $9100 a year median include a bunch of fixed costs (or at least costs that wouldn't grow linearly with the mileage driven)? e.g., the lease/cost of car itself, insurance, etc. I'm not saying this would take the profitability of being a Lyft driver from pretty terrible to great, but it does seem like a pretty significant oversight.
- jdmichal 13y ago
  But it's not like his car payment magically disappears when he becomes a Lyft driver. Or magically stop having to carry insurance. It's a good estimate to use for cost, especially considering the author did not even own a car and would have to purchase one.
  - FaceKicker 13y ago
    > But it's not like his car payment magically disappears when he becomes a Lyft driver. Or magically stop having to carry insurance. Right, my point is that those costs are essentially fixed w.r.t miles driven, not that you wouldn't need those things. If you drive 36000 miles a year as a Lyft driver your car payment is still the same as someone who drives 12000 miles a year, whereas the author's model assumes the payment would be 3x as much. And re insurance, I know insurance companies take mileage into account in determining insurance premium, but it's certainly not the only thing in the formula.
    - fat0wl 13y ago
      jinx
    - jdmichal 13y ago
      Ah, I misunderstood. Yes, you are correct. I would use the US government's rate per mile, which comes out to about $17 for 30 miles. Unknown what components this is expected to include beyond fuel and wear/tear. http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/100715 http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/100715 EDIT: Found further clarification. "The TDY mileage rates consider the fixed and variable costs to operate a car (gasoline, insurance, wear and tear, etc.) and are intended to reimburse the average expense of using a POC for the official government travel." http://www.defensetravel.dod.mil/site/faqmileage.cfm http://www.defensetravel.dod.mil/site/faqmileage.cfm
    - conductr 13y ago
      Drive 36k miles a year and the car will quickly have a resell value of 0 and repair costs become more frequent. Insurance is probably the only true fixed cost that benefits from scale
      - FaceKicker 13y ago
        I agree that repair costs and depreciation grow (probably roughly linearly) with miles driven, but those would have been factored into the $9100 median separately from the car payment.
- idunno246 13y ago
  It's amortizing the cost so it makes sense. The real thing missing is assuming all the miles are lyft miles, and assuming the car provides no value outside of lyft
- wikwocket 13y ago
  The $9100 number skews the analysis for several reasons. First, it does include fuel, depreciation, interest, insurance, repair, maintenance, and tax - see the linked Consumer Reports article for details. Second, $9100 is the median number, not the mean or "best price available." The article lists other cars that have numbers closer to $5000-$7000, and all the numbers are lower if you keep the car for longer than 5 years. Finally, the article says that "Depreciation is the largest cost factor by far," and that it contributes about half of the cost of ownership. Buy a 1-2 year old car, and your cost of ownership will drop considerably.
yid 13y ago
> I’m just guessing that I’ll average a speed of 30 miles/hour while I’m doing my Lyft job. So my expenses will come to about $22.80 per hour. You're implying that you will driving 30 miles each hour, on average. That is a ridiculous overestimation for the type of urban driving Lyft will involve. I'd guess closer to 15-20 in off-peak periods, and perhaps something close to 10 miles on average. That brings maintenance expenses down to $7.60/hr from $22/hr.
- brent_noorda 13y ago
  Maintaining 30 mph in a dense city, such as downtown SF is probably high (although then enough time is spent idling that my costs-per-mile estimate becomes too low). Fair point. I pulled the 30 mph out of someone else's guess in the AMA article mentioned, and from the most recent Lyft report I read, saying it wasn't uncommon to drive to the airport (removing the Mustache first, of course) during which time 30mph is low, and the time-between-rides becomes high.
- fleitz 13y ago
  Urban driving incurs a higher cost per mile driven, and unless you're driving a hybrid increases fuel costs.
  - teh_klev 13y ago
    And not to mention increased wear and tear on brakes, gearbox and engine due to much more start-stop events during urban journeys especially at peak times i.e. traffic lights, junctions, tailbacks etc. On top of that, the car will be starting and stopping i.e. engine start/stop cycles far more during urban workload if you're a taxi driver, that also increases the number of times your car will be visiting the shop for maintenance as the life of the car increases. Cars with high long distance journey motorway miles will last far longer than a car working out its life in a city. This can affect resell value if you own the car rather than lease. As a fairly experienced second hand car owner/purchaser I'd far rather buy a motor with 100k+ motorway miles than 50k city life on the clock.
  - yid 13y ago
    Which is why UberX was originally advertised as being "hybrid uber". As for the higher cost per mile of urban driving, I genuinely would love to see a source.
KaoruAoiShiho 13y ago
@Brent Noorda, awesome! You've identified a market opportunity to provider a more consumer friendly and driver friendly alternative! Give back to the community! All you need is some servers and lattes.
- brent_noorda 13y ago
  Given what the drivers and passengers put into it, it does seem that Lyft's 20% cut seems high - but that 20% is also what justifies backing from the investors. If so, then there's room for a service doing the same brokerage deal for, maybe 10% or 5% (if they cut out the lattes), advertising itself as "cheaper than cabs, AND cheaper than Lyft". Maybe Craig will offer a really crappy UI and do it for free?
  - twistedpair 13y ago
    Sounds like a good ole fashioned race to the bottom.
tommaxwell 13y ago
Uber just announced that it has struck deals with auto manufacturers to chop $100-200 off monthly payments for those that are approved to drive for them. http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/24/uber-driver-car-financing/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/24/uber-driver-car-financing/
artag 13y ago
According to IRS, $0.58 per mile is fair comp (for driving your own car). http://www.irs.gov/uac/2013-Standard-Mileage-Rates-Up-1-Cent-per-Mile-for-Business,-Medical-and-Moving http://www.irs.gov/uac/2013-Standard-Mileage-Rates-Up-1-Cent.... In city, you can hardly drive over 35 miles/hour and you stop frequently. Even if you drive 10-20 miles per hour, that's $6 - $12. per hour.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  The IRS is definitely lowballing it though.
fks 13y ago
I know Uber drivers count driving/car costs as business expenses for a tax write off. Something to think about...
- brent_noorda 13y ago
  Lyft drivers could surely benefit from the tax deductions as well. I assume they report their Lyft payments to the IRS? This complicates the "how much they earn" formula further.
  - patio11 13y ago
    Lyft sends 1099(-K, presumably)s to drivers who make over $20k from 200+ transactions a year. This is the same reporting system used by Stripe and Paypal. (I have lots lying around.) It would be exceptionally unwise to fail to report income which has been 1099-ed to you, and very unwise to fail to report substantial income merely because one does not have a corresponding 1099 for it, because (particularly in the case where one party has all the information required to reconstruct your income and that one party can simultaneously uncover millions of dollars of under-reporting) audits exist.
mschuster91 13y ago
It is also possible to drive a used car, which can drastically lower the initial and operating expenses. This way, even "luxury" cars are a viable option to drive. Also, most people tip their drivers, which is basically tax-free income (at least in Germany).
- darkstar999 13y ago
  Tips are taxable income in the US.
kevingibbon 13y ago
I think your missing the point. You are calculating this on the basis that you were buying and using your car exclusively for Lyft. If a driver is already paying for a vehicle, all of these expenses can be shared with personal use. This is the 'sharing economy'. To buy a car and use it exclusively for Lyft may not make sense.
verteu 13y ago
Profit = marginal revenue - marginal cost. You've counted all vehicle maintenance as a "cost of Lyft driving". For people who already own (and maintain) a car, this is not the case.
abalone 13y ago
Oh give me a break. He's basing his entire analysis on the assumption that it costs $22.80/hr to operate a vehicle. They way he comes up with that is by including the up-front cost of the vehicle. That's not quite the right logic. Most people do not go out and purchase a vehicle just to become a Lyft drivers. Certainly that's not what you should do. A better economic analysis is to look at Lyft as a way to make your existing personal car a more productive asset. The car is a sunk cost. What you should analyze is the incremental costs of fuel and wear-and-tear for the additional miles driven vs. the Lyft proceeds. Econ geek footnote: This is assuming there is little-to-no opportunity cost for being a Lyft driver. But for the unemployed that holds true. Lyft may be a more compelling option for unemployed/underemployed car owners.
- pbreit 13y ago
  > Most people do not go out and purchase a vehicle just to become a Lyft drivers. But that's a likely direction. And if you're trying to make much money from Lyft, you're probably driving it much more for Lyft than for yourself already.
  - abalone 13y ago
    Still counts. As long as you would have bought the vehicle for your own use anyway, it's a sunk cost. Whether or not it's profitable to rent it out via Lyft depends solely on the incremental costs of the extra driving -- not how much extra driving you do. And if it is profitable, then driving more is more profitable, not less.
somberi 13y ago
Even if Brent may have overestimated the cost of operating a vehicle, assuming he makes 2X of his projection, that is still less than L.A minimum wage ($8 today. Increasing to $10 by 2016.)
hansy 13y ago
I'm going to agree with the majority here and say it's probably a bad idea to buy a car just to do Lyft. However, I wonder if there are any arbitrage opportunities by combining Lyft with something like Flightcar (where you don't own the vehicle).
brent_noorda 13y ago
Nice feedback on my blog post, y'all. Thanks. Estimating exactly how much a driver receives from Lyft, versus that driver's expenses, is really difficult. So I took some shortcuts with easily searchable published data and ended up with just $3.45/hour. In a G+ discussion it came up that if you could externalize most ownership expenses (e.g. driving your dad's car), it would be reasonable to get up to $17/hour with all my other estimates being the same. In a best-case scenario you'd be picking up someone whose destination is where you were already headed, in which case your 80% of the payment would be pure profit. If you drove that person for a full hour, to a place where you were already headed, and they paid you $43.75, then you really would get that $35/hour that Lyft advertises for drivers. In the end, these estimates are hard. Lyft themselves probably have real good data on the matter. Maybe they'll give us some real numbers, and show us how they can be cheaper than cabs while simultaneously (if their advertising for drivers is to be believed) paying their drivers a lot more than typical cabbies.
- vilhelm_s 13y ago
  > how they can be cheaper than cabs while simultaneously (if their advertising for drivers is to be believed) paying their drivers a lot more than typical cabbies. The capital cost of buying a taxi medallion?
  - brent_noorda 13y ago
    Good point. I hear an SF medalion can go for 300K.
joshfraser 13y ago
Meanwhile, http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/24/uber-driver-car-financing/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/24/uber-driver-car-financing/
cornycrunch 13y ago
There's no conceivable sum of money you could pay me to put an ugly pink mustache on my car. Why do they think this mustache fad is still funny?
pbreit 13y ago
This is poor analysis. The writer takes an artificially high number ($9100), divides it by an artificially low number (12,000) and then multiplies it by an artificially high number (30 mph) resulting in just about the highest number possible. Take a $15,000 car with a nice warranty and good mileage. $3 or so per hour for gas. $200/month for registration, insurance, etc. Maybe you'd get to $10 and hour in costs, but I doubt it. And the car would last for 10 years at least.
- brent_noorda 13y ago
  At $10/hour expenses (your estimate) and $26/hour income (the original article's estimate) the Lyft driver is now netting $16/hour.
exue 13y ago
For people already with a car, the variable costs of driving (maintenance, fuel, etc.) is usually 25-45 cents (lower end is a economy car getting 30mpg city, higher end is a less fuel-efficient, less reliable car). Using 35c/mile, and an average urban driving speed, that's $5.25/hour. Even idling half the time, that's 17.50-5.25=$12.25, better than many pizza delivery / the average urban courier rate. Delivery drivers often get far less than $35 while having to pay their own vehicle costs. The calculus changes a lot just based on that single number, average speed. I'm sure the $35/hr number would be far higher if everyone was going on freeways between trips and racking up the miles like crazy (assuming Lyft incorporates distance into its pricing heavily)
kellros 13y ago
Lyft. Someone is being taken for a ride! +1!
akaashachreja 13y ago
Ugh, this post is a minefield of logical fallacies
- brent_noorda 13y ago
  Logical fallacies? No. I take my logical fallacies very seriously. But factual fallacies? Perhaps, since it is based on some assumptions and guesses.

48 points by hangonhn 13y ago

1. In most places it is illegal to provide transport for a fee without a special state-provided license. 2. There are also special legal requirements from the driver, e.g. taxi drivers license. 3. Insurance requirements are different and order of magnitude higher for vehicles that provide such transport. 4. In case of accidents/fatalities or police stops, who bears responsibility/liability? The car owner, the company, the insurer, all of the above? How much danger of arrest/confiscation/huge fines is the driver in? Does lyft indemnify their business partners against such incidents? 5. The drivers earnings should be the least concern for folks who sign up for this scheme

FaceKicker 13y ago

> According to this Consumer Reports article, “the median car costs more than $9,100 a year to own” over the first five years of ownership driving 12,000 miles a year. That means the median cars costs about 76 cents per mile driven ($9100/12000). I’m just guessing that I’ll average a speed of 30 miles/hour while I’m doing my Lyft job. So my expenses will come to about $22.80 per hour (0.76*30). Doesn't that $9100 a year median include a bunch of fixed costs (or at least costs that wouldn't grow linearly with the mileage driven)? e.g., the lease/cost of car itself, insurance, etc. I'm not saying this would take the profitability of being a Lyft driver from pretty terrible to great, but it does seem like a pretty significant oversight.

jdmichal 13y ago
But it's not like his car payment magically disappears when he becomes a Lyft driver. Or magically stop having to carry insurance. It's a good estimate to use for cost, especially considering the author did not even own a car and would have to purchase one.
- FaceKicker 13y ago
  > But it's not like his car payment magically disappears when he becomes a Lyft driver. Or magically stop having to carry insurance. Right, my point is that those costs are essentially fixed w.r.t miles driven, not that you wouldn't need those things. If you drive 36000 miles a year as a Lyft driver your car payment is still the same as someone who drives 12000 miles a year, whereas the author's model assumes the payment would be 3x as much. And re insurance, I know insurance companies take mileage into account in determining insurance premium, but it's certainly not the only thing in the formula.
  - fat0wl 13y ago
    jinx
  - jdmichal 13y ago
    Ah, I misunderstood. Yes, you are correct. I would use the US government's rate per mile, which comes out to about $17 for 30 miles. Unknown what components this is expected to include beyond fuel and wear/tear. http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/100715 http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/100715 EDIT: Found further clarification. "The TDY mileage rates consider the fixed and variable costs to operate a car (gasoline, insurance, wear and tear, etc.) and are intended to reimburse the average expense of using a POC for the official government travel." http://www.defensetravel.dod.mil/site/faqmileage.cfm http://www.defensetravel.dod.mil/site/faqmileage.cfm
  - conductr 13y ago
    Drive 36k miles a year and the car will quickly have a resell value of 0 and repair costs become more frequent. Insurance is probably the only true fixed cost that benefits from scale
    - FaceKicker 13y ago
      I agree that repair costs and depreciation grow (probably roughly linearly) with miles driven, but those would have been factored into the $9100 median separately from the car payment.
idunno246 13y ago
It's amortizing the cost so it makes sense. The real thing missing is assuming all the miles are lyft miles, and assuming the car provides no value outside of lyft
wikwocket 13y ago
The $9100 number skews the analysis for several reasons. First, it does include fuel, depreciation, interest, insurance, repair, maintenance, and tax - see the linked Consumer Reports article for details. Second, $9100 is the median number, not the mean or "best price available." The article lists other cars that have numbers closer to $5000-$7000, and all the numbers are lower if you keep the car for longer than 5 years. Finally, the article says that "Depreciation is the largest cost factor by far," and that it contributes about half of the cost of ownership. Buy a 1-2 year old car, and your cost of ownership will drop considerably.

yid 13y ago

> I’m just guessing that I’ll average a speed of 30 miles/hour while I’m doing my Lyft job. So my expenses will come to about $22.80 per hour. You're implying that you will driving 30 miles each hour, on average. That is a ridiculous overestimation for the type of urban driving Lyft will involve. I'd guess closer to 15-20 in off-peak periods, and perhaps something close to 10 miles on average. That brings maintenance expenses down to $7.60/hr from $22/hr.

brent_noorda 13y ago
Maintaining 30 mph in a dense city, such as downtown SF is probably high (although then enough time is spent idling that my costs-per-mile estimate becomes too low). Fair point. I pulled the 30 mph out of someone else's guess in the AMA article mentioned, and from the most recent Lyft report I read, saying it wasn't uncommon to drive to the airport (removing the Mustache first, of course) during which time 30mph is low, and the time-between-rides becomes high.
fleitz 13y ago
Urban driving incurs a higher cost per mile driven, and unless you're driving a hybrid increases fuel costs.
- teh_klev 13y ago
  And not to mention increased wear and tear on brakes, gearbox and engine due to much more start-stop events during urban journeys especially at peak times i.e. traffic lights, junctions, tailbacks etc. On top of that, the car will be starting and stopping i.e. engine start/stop cycles far more during urban workload if you're a taxi driver, that also increases the number of times your car will be visiting the shop for maintenance as the life of the car increases. Cars with high long distance journey motorway miles will last far longer than a car working out its life in a city. This can affect resell value if you own the car rather than lease. As a fairly experienced second hand car owner/purchaser I'd far rather buy a motor with 100k+ motorway miles than 50k city life on the clock.
- yid 13y ago
  Which is why UberX was originally advertised as being "hybrid uber". As for the higher cost per mile of urban driving, I genuinely would love to see a source.

KaoruAoiShiho 13y ago

@Brent Noorda, awesome! You've identified a market opportunity to provider a more consumer friendly and driver friendly alternative! Give back to the community! All you need is some servers and lattes.

brent_noorda 13y ago
Given what the drivers and passengers put into it, it does seem that Lyft's 20% cut seems high - but that 20% is also what justifies backing from the investors. If so, then there's room for a service doing the same brokerage deal for, maybe 10% or 5% (if they cut out the lattes), advertising itself as "cheaper than cabs, AND cheaper than Lyft". Maybe Craig will offer a really crappy UI and do it for free?
- twistedpair 13y ago
  Sounds like a good ole fashioned race to the bottom.

tommaxwell 13y ago

Uber just announced that it has struck deals with auto manufacturers to chop $100-200 off monthly payments for those that are approved to drive for them. http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/24/uber-driver-car-financing/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/24/uber-driver-car-financing/

artag 13y ago

According to IRS, $0.58 per mile is fair comp (for driving your own car). http://www.irs.gov/uac/2013-Standard-Mileage-Rates-Up-1-Cent-per-Mile-for-Business,-Medical-and-Moving http://www.irs.gov/uac/2013-Standard-Mileage-Rates-Up-1-Cent.... In city, you can hardly drive over 35 miles/hour and you stop frequently. Even if you drive 10-20 miles per hour, that's $6 - $12. per hour.

sliverstorm 13y ago
The IRS is definitely lowballing it though.

fks 13y ago

I know Uber drivers count driving/car costs as business expenses for a tax write off. Something to think about...

brent_noorda 13y ago
Lyft drivers could surely benefit from the tax deductions as well. I assume they report their Lyft payments to the IRS? This complicates the "how much they earn" formula further.
- patio11 13y ago
  Lyft sends 1099(-K, presumably)s to drivers who make over $20k from 200+ transactions a year. This is the same reporting system used by Stripe and Paypal. (I have lots lying around.) It would be exceptionally unwise to fail to report income which has been 1099-ed to you, and very unwise to fail to report substantial income merely because one does not have a corresponding 1099 for it, because (particularly in the case where one party has all the information required to reconstruct your income and that one party can simultaneously uncover millions of dollars of under-reporting) audits exist.

mschuster91 13y ago

It is also possible to drive a used car, which can drastically lower the initial and operating expenses. This way, even "luxury" cars are a viable option to drive. Also, most people tip their drivers, which is basically tax-free income (at least in Germany).

darkstar999 13y ago
Tips are taxable income in the US.

kevingibbon 13y ago

I think your missing the point. You are calculating this on the basis that you were buying and using your car exclusively for Lyft. If a driver is already paying for a vehicle, all of these expenses can be shared with personal use. This is the 'sharing economy'. To buy a car and use it exclusively for Lyft may not make sense.

verteu 13y ago

Profit = marginal revenue - marginal cost. You've counted all vehicle maintenance as a "cost of Lyft driving". For people who already own (and maintain) a car, this is not the case.

abalone 13y ago

Oh give me a break. He's basing his entire analysis on the assumption that it costs $22.80/hr to operate a vehicle. They way he comes up with that is by including the up-front cost of the vehicle. That's not quite the right logic. Most people do not go out and purchase a vehicle just to become a Lyft drivers. Certainly that's not what you should do. A better economic analysis is to look at Lyft as a way to make your existing personal car a more productive asset. The car is a sunk cost. What you should analyze is the incremental costs of fuel and wear-and-tear for the additional miles driven vs. the Lyft proceeds. Econ geek footnote: This is assuming there is little-to-no opportunity cost for being a Lyft driver. But for the unemployed that holds true. Lyft may be a more compelling option for unemployed/underemployed car owners.

pbreit 13y ago
> Most people do not go out and purchase a vehicle just to become a Lyft drivers. But that's a likely direction. And if you're trying to make much money from Lyft, you're probably driving it much more for Lyft than for yourself already.
- abalone 13y ago
  Still counts. As long as you would have bought the vehicle for your own use anyway, it's a sunk cost. Whether or not it's profitable to rent it out via Lyft depends solely on the incremental costs of the extra driving -- not how much extra driving you do. And if it is profitable, then driving more is more profitable, not less.

somberi 13y ago

Even if Brent may have overestimated the cost of operating a vehicle, assuming he makes 2X of his projection, that is still less than L.A minimum wage ($8 today. Increasing to $10 by 2016.)

hansy 13y ago

I'm going to agree with the majority here and say it's probably a bad idea to buy a car just to do Lyft. However, I wonder if there are any arbitrage opportunities by combining Lyft with something like Flightcar (where you don't own the vehicle).

brent_noorda 13y ago

Nice feedback on my blog post, y'all. Thanks. Estimating exactly how much a driver receives from Lyft, versus that driver's expenses, is really difficult. So I took some shortcuts with easily searchable published data and ended up with just $3.45/hour. In a G+ discussion it came up that if you could externalize most ownership expenses (e.g. driving your dad's car), it would be reasonable to get up to $17/hour with all my other estimates being the same. In a best-case scenario you'd be picking up someone whose destination is where you were already headed, in which case your 80% of the payment would be pure profit. If you drove that person for a full hour, to a place where you were already headed, and they paid you $43.75, then you really would get that $35/hour that Lyft advertises for drivers. In the end, these estimates are hard. Lyft themselves probably have real good data on the matter. Maybe they'll give us some real numbers, and show us how they can be cheaper than cabs while simultaneously (if their advertising for drivers is to be believed) paying their drivers a lot more than typical cabbies.

vilhelm_s 13y ago
> how they can be cheaper than cabs while simultaneously (if their advertising for drivers is to be believed) paying their drivers a lot more than typical cabbies. The capital cost of buying a taxi medallion?
- brent_noorda 13y ago
  Good point. I hear an SF medalion can go for 300K.

joshfraser 13y ago

Meanwhile, http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/24/uber-driver-car-financing/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/24/uber-driver-car-financing/

cornycrunch 13y ago

There's no conceivable sum of money you could pay me to put an ugly pink mustache on my car. Why do they think this mustache fad is still funny?

pbreit 13y ago

This is poor analysis. The writer takes an artificially high number ($9100), divides it by an artificially low number (12,000) and then multiplies it by an artificially high number (30 mph) resulting in just about the highest number possible. Take a $15,000 car with a nice warranty and good mileage. $3 or so per hour for gas. $200/month for registration, insurance, etc. Maybe you'd get to $10 and hour in costs, but I doubt it. And the car would last for 10 years at least.

brent_noorda 13y ago
At $10/hour expenses (your estimate) and $26/hour income (the original article's estimate) the Lyft driver is now netting $16/hour.

exue 13y ago

For people already with a car, the variable costs of driving (maintenance, fuel, etc.) is usually 25-45 cents (lower end is a economy car getting 30mpg city, higher end is a less fuel-efficient, less reliable car). Using 35c/mile, and an average urban driving speed, that's $5.25/hour. Even idling half the time, that's 17.50-5.25=$12.25, better than many pizza delivery / the average urban courier rate. Delivery drivers often get far less than $35 while having to pay their own vehicle costs. The calculus changes a lot just based on that single number, average speed. I'm sure the $35/hr number would be far higher if everyone was going on freeways between trips and racking up the miles like crazy (assuming Lyft incorporates distance into its pricing heavily)

kellros 13y ago

Lyft. Someone is being taken for a ride! +1!

akaashachreja 13y ago

Ugh, this post is a minefield of logical fallacies

brent_noorda 13y ago
Logical fallacies? No. I take my logical fallacies very seriously. But factual fallacies? Perhaps, since it is based on some assumptions and guesses.