9 ms·

I wonder what happens when his Tesla gets t-boned by a pickup truck, they guy speeds off and he has to claim it on his insurance. His insurance finds out he's d

by Avitas 13y ago

I wonder what happens when his Tesla gets t-boned by a pickup truck, they guy speeds off and he has to claim it on his insurance. His insurance finds out he's driving for Uber and then...

cloudwalking 13y ago
He also says he's pulling $21/hour but I don't see any maintenance or depreciation factored in...
- marvin 13y ago
  Well hey...if you can bait civilian drivers with no real contract into taking these costs for you, more power to you, right? After all, you're creating shareholder value. If the drivers ever pick up on it, just raise the payout. They'll have made money in the meantime.
  - kosei 13y ago
    To be fair here, unless you're driving a luxury car like a Tesla, your depreciation, gas and maintenance costs are still probably $5/hour or less. So, call it $16/hour, and it's still well above minimum wage and most living wages. You're adding extra danger due to potential crash concerns etc, but I don't really know how to best quantify that. http://commutesolutions.org/external/calc.html http://commutesolutions.org/external/calc.html
    - maxerickson 13y ago
      One way is to figure out how much taxis and limos are paying for insurance. The insurance companies already spend a lot of effort trying to quantify those risks.
    - cloudwalking 13y ago
      Your assumptions may be incorrect. Here is an article that was on HN a couple months ago: http://brent-noorda.blogspot.com/2013/11/how-much-does-lyft-driver-earn.html?m=1 http://brent-noorda.blogspot.com/2013/11/how-much-does-lyft-... According to Consumer Reports (see linked article), the median car costs about $9k per year for the first 5 years (including the sticker price). That comes out to $0.75 per mile--not an insignificant amount. Driving 30 miles per hour, that's $22.50 in costs.
      - marvin 13y ago
        You could always drive a cheaper car. Whoops...some customers don't like your car. 4.3 star rating. Out you go ;) This sounds like a poor deal to me.
      - tomhschmidt 13y ago
        That's not a very good comparison. Many of these costs you'll incur, regardless of whether or not you drive for Uber (insurance, tabs, tax, depreciation, etc.) To actually calculate the costs of driving for Uber, we should only be looking at the variable, or the per-mile cost, which as far as I can tell should be: - Gas - Maintenance - Loss in resale value
      - dredmorbius 13y ago
        Those costs are accurate, but a major part of the expense is depreciation. The longer you own the car (and the less you drive it), the lower those expenses are. Parking (including the land or rent you pay to your garage) is another big hidden expense. Automobile reliability has, generally, advanced worlds from where it was in the 1970s. It used to be that getting 100,000 miles was a significant accomplishment, now it's pretty much expected, and having a car run 200,000 miles isn't uncommon. I'd had a vehicle I ended up selling to a friend which went 280k before it was finally cash-for-clunkered. In that time, it went through a couple of radiators, a couple of exhaust manifold repairs, and a transmission (protip: keep 'em lubed and watch for oil leaks). And a few sets of brake pads, possibly a clutch. But all told, pretty remarkable. In the 2000s you saw some significant improvements in safety (ubiquitous airbags, ABS, and traction control), but not a whole lot else. That said: doing a lot of city driving in traffic is fairly high-risk and high-wear on a car.
      - kosei 13y ago
        I'm not sure how you can use a flat statistic like $9,100/year to own based on 12,000 miles per year driven, and then apply it to a Lyft driver. They could be driving 45,000 miles per year, in which case the $9,100 per year would go up, but it's not clear by how much. I would guess that there are large efficiencies there. There are another number of flaws with this logic: 1) Assumes that you only use your car for Uber/Lyft driving and that it is entirely valueless otherwise. If you were going to own a car anyway, you were going to eat a bunch of that cost to begin with. The extra costs are in the incremental mileage that you drive. 2) Assumes you are buying a brand new car, and uses averages for first 5 years. If you just start with a 1-year old car, that drops your average around 25% (from ~$9K to ~$7K). 3) Averages across a number of makes and models, including a number of luxury cars (pretty sure most people looking to earn $35/hour aren't in the market for Porches, Land Rovers and Mercedes Benz', all of which top out the scale being used in the consumer reports article). For example, a Toyota Camry would cost about $5,700/year to own for years 2-5 (http://autos.yahoo.com/toyota/camry/2013/l/cost.html http://autos.yahoo.com/toyota/camry/2013/l/cost.html), and around $7K/year for all first 5 years. 4) As stated earlier, assumes that a Lyft driver is just going 12,000 miles/year and that the rate $0.75/hour stays constant regardless of how many hours you drive in a year. 5) As far as I can tell, you can write off your expenses on your taxes, recouping part of the value as well (standard cost at 56 1/3 miles per gallon: http://www.irs.gov/publications/p463/ch04.html#en_US_2013_publink100033935 http://www.irs.gov/publications/p463/ch04.html#en_US_2013_pu...). Not quite sure how to evaluate, and it's very possible that I may have estimated on the lower end. But, the methodology used in that blog post linked is pretty visibly flawed in a number of ways. Now I've already given this more thought than I initially planned to, but you're right that I shouldn't have off-handedly thrown out $5/hour without investigation. That said, it bothers me that the blogger you referenced put out an entire article (that was referenced on HN) that used such poor reasoning and assumptions using misleading data. All of which to come up with a bolded "$3.45/hour!!!" conclusion. /rant
Karunamon 13y ago
I'd imagine the same thing that happens to people who work for the average delivery food place (i.e. most don't mark it a work vehicle for insurance purposes either) and get into an accident. I'd hardly call Uber immoral for this. It's up to each person to square up with their insurance company.
- HarryHirsch 13y ago
  What's happening here is that Uber and your favorite pizza taxi are littering. They know that a fair share of their drivers do not carry a commercial liability policy. When an Uber driver has an accident, the next thing that will happen is that their insurance denies the claim, and you have to claim against your uninsured motorist policy. Good luck to anyone who doesn't have such a policy because they don't own a car! Hey, uninsured motorist rates just went up! I wish they didn't do that, and instead Uber fares and pizza prices went up because I don't use them. They have no business imposing externalities on me.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - Karunamon 13y ago
    >Hey, uninsured motorist rates just went up! I wish they didn't do that, and instead Uber fares and pizza prices went up because I don't use them. They have no business imposing externalities on me. Indeed. If someone drives in such a way as to be uninsured, shame on them. Still not the company's fault for the individual's lack of responsibility.
    - Nrsolis 13y ago
      >Still not the company's fault for the individual's lack of responsibility. No. If they know, or more importantly from a legal liability standpoint SHOULD have known, then it's on them. We haven't seen the test case that will decide the legal liability/insurability of P2P driver services, but it's clear that Uber and others are operating in a somewhat legal grey area and are not bothered by it. Indeed, you could argue that they are forcing the issue of regulation and insurability with their business model. But I'd stop short of saying that they have NO responsibility. It's clear that Uber is hoping to delay any reckoning on that question until after their dominance is a fait accompli.
MichaelGG 13y ago
Uber says they require proof of livery insurance. So in theory the driver should already be paying that $$$ a month and be covered.
- walkersm 13y ago
  Thats for Uber Black and SUV not UberX. They only check for proof of personal auto insurance on UberX. And they know that does not cover the driver in most instances. They knowingly send people out to do work on their system knowing they are committing insurance fraud. Worst part is regulators seem to be letting them get away with it in many states, Not all.

by Avitas 13y ago

I wonder what happens when his Tesla gets t-boned by a pickup truck, they guy speeds off and he has to claim it on his insurance. His insurance finds out he's driving for Uber and then...

cloudwalking 13y ago

He also says he's pulling $21/hour but I don't see any maintenance or depreciation factored in...

marvin 13y ago
Well hey...if you can bait civilian drivers with no real contract into taking these costs for you, more power to you, right? After all, you're creating shareholder value. If the drivers ever pick up on it, just raise the payout. They'll have made money in the meantime.
- kosei 13y ago
  To be fair here, unless you're driving a luxury car like a Tesla, your depreciation, gas and maintenance costs are still probably $5/hour or less. So, call it $16/hour, and it's still well above minimum wage and most living wages. You're adding extra danger due to potential crash concerns etc, but I don't really know how to best quantify that. http://commutesolutions.org/external/calc.html http://commutesolutions.org/external/calc.html
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    One way is to figure out how much taxis and limos are paying for insurance. The insurance companies already spend a lot of effort trying to quantify those risks.
  - cloudwalking 13y ago
    Your assumptions may be incorrect. Here is an article that was on HN a couple months ago: http://brent-noorda.blogspot.com/2013/11/how-much-does-lyft-driver-earn.html?m=1 http://brent-noorda.blogspot.com/2013/11/how-much-does-lyft-... According to Consumer Reports (see linked article), the median car costs about $9k per year for the first 5 years (including the sticker price). That comes out to $0.75 per mile--not an insignificant amount. Driving 30 miles per hour, that's $22.50 in costs.
    - marvin 13y ago
      You could always drive a cheaper car. Whoops...some customers don't like your car. 4.3 star rating. Out you go ;) This sounds like a poor deal to me.
    - tomhschmidt 13y ago
      That's not a very good comparison. Many of these costs you'll incur, regardless of whether or not you drive for Uber (insurance, tabs, tax, depreciation, etc.) To actually calculate the costs of driving for Uber, we should only be looking at the variable, or the per-mile cost, which as far as I can tell should be: - Gas - Maintenance - Loss in resale value
    - dredmorbius 13y ago
      Those costs are accurate, but a major part of the expense is depreciation. The longer you own the car (and the less you drive it), the lower those expenses are. Parking (including the land or rent you pay to your garage) is another big hidden expense. Automobile reliability has, generally, advanced worlds from where it was in the 1970s. It used to be that getting 100,000 miles was a significant accomplishment, now it's pretty much expected, and having a car run 200,000 miles isn't uncommon. I'd had a vehicle I ended up selling to a friend which went 280k before it was finally cash-for-clunkered. In that time, it went through a couple of radiators, a couple of exhaust manifold repairs, and a transmission (protip: keep 'em lubed and watch for oil leaks). And a few sets of brake pads, possibly a clutch. But all told, pretty remarkable. In the 2000s you saw some significant improvements in safety (ubiquitous airbags, ABS, and traction control), but not a whole lot else. That said: doing a lot of city driving in traffic is fairly high-risk and high-wear on a car.
    - kosei 13y ago
      I'm not sure how you can use a flat statistic like $9,100/year to own based on 12,000 miles per year driven, and then apply it to a Lyft driver. They could be driving 45,000 miles per year, in which case the $9,100 per year would go up, but it's not clear by how much. I would guess that there are large efficiencies there. There are another number of flaws with this logic: 1) Assumes that you only use your car for Uber/Lyft driving and that it is entirely valueless otherwise. If you were going to own a car anyway, you were going to eat a bunch of that cost to begin with. The extra costs are in the incremental mileage that you drive. 2) Assumes you are buying a brand new car, and uses averages for first 5 years. If you just start with a 1-year old car, that drops your average around 25% (from ~$9K to ~$7K). 3) Averages across a number of makes and models, including a number of luxury cars (pretty sure most people looking to earn $35/hour aren't in the market for Porches, Land Rovers and Mercedes Benz', all of which top out the scale being used in the consumer reports article). For example, a Toyota Camry would cost about $5,700/year to own for years 2-5 (http://autos.yahoo.com/toyota/camry/2013/l/cost.html http://autos.yahoo.com/toyota/camry/2013/l/cost.html), and around $7K/year for all first 5 years. 4) As stated earlier, assumes that a Lyft driver is just going 12,000 miles/year and that the rate $0.75/hour stays constant regardless of how many hours you drive in a year. 5) As far as I can tell, you can write off your expenses on your taxes, recouping part of the value as well (standard cost at 56 1/3 miles per gallon: http://www.irs.gov/publications/p463/ch04.html#en_US_2013_publink100033935 http://www.irs.gov/publications/p463/ch04.html#en_US_2013_pu...). Not quite sure how to evaluate, and it's very possible that I may have estimated on the lower end. But, the methodology used in that blog post linked is pretty visibly flawed in a number of ways. Now I've already given this more thought than I initially planned to, but you're right that I shouldn't have off-handedly thrown out $5/hour without investigation. That said, it bothers me that the blogger you referenced put out an entire article (that was referenced on HN) that used such poor reasoning and assumptions using misleading data. All of which to come up with a bolded "$3.45/hour!!!" conclusion. /rant

Karunamon 13y ago

I'd imagine the same thing that happens to people who work for the average delivery food place (i.e. most don't mark it a work vehicle for insurance purposes either) and get into an accident. I'd hardly call Uber immoral for this. It's up to each person to square up with their insurance company.

HarryHirsch 13y ago
What's happening here is that Uber and your favorite pizza taxi are littering. They know that a fair share of their drivers do not carry a commercial liability policy. When an Uber driver has an accident, the next thing that will happen is that their insurance denies the claim, and you have to claim against your uninsured motorist policy. Good luck to anyone who doesn't have such a policy because they don't own a car! Hey, uninsured motorist rates just went up! I wish they didn't do that, and instead Uber fares and pizza prices went up because I don't use them. They have no business imposing externalities on me.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- Karunamon 13y ago
  >Hey, uninsured motorist rates just went up! I wish they didn't do that, and instead Uber fares and pizza prices went up because I don't use them. They have no business imposing externalities on me. Indeed. If someone drives in such a way as to be uninsured, shame on them. Still not the company's fault for the individual's lack of responsibility.
  - Nrsolis 13y ago
    >Still not the company's fault for the individual's lack of responsibility. No. If they know, or more importantly from a legal liability standpoint SHOULD have known, then it's on them. We haven't seen the test case that will decide the legal liability/insurability of P2P driver services, but it's clear that Uber and others are operating in a somewhat legal grey area and are not bothered by it. Indeed, you could argue that they are forcing the issue of regulation and insurability with their business model. But I'd stop short of saying that they have NO responsibility. It's clear that Uber is hoping to delay any reckoning on that question until after their dominance is a fait accompli.

MichaelGG 13y ago

Uber says they require proof of livery insurance. So in theory the driver should already be paying that $$$ a month and be covered.

walkersm 13y ago
Thats for Uber Black and SUV not UberX. They only check for proof of personal auto insurance on UberX. And they know that does not cover the driver in most instances. They knowingly send people out to do work on their system knowing they are committing insurance fraud. Worst part is regulators seem to be letting them get away with it in many states, Not all.