Any cabbies?
- Thread starter Narz
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Goodfella
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It's often quoted (from 2014 data) that riders only pay 41% of the cost of their ride for Uber. I haven't looked into it so I don't know how accurate it is (how is the cost per ride calculated?) but I think Lyft and Uber are banking on electric vehicles and AV to help solve this problem. I've also read that cab fares are fairly price inelastic.
Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
I'm sure it's based on cost/mile and average miles/ride.
Cost/mile is going to be different for everyone, simplest way is to just use what the IRS uses, which was 53.5 cents per mile in 2017.
Goodfella
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I do have some suspicion that it may have been calculated by just dividing revenue by number of rides and comparing that to average fare. But again, haven't looked into it.
Bamspeedy
CheeseBob
It just looks at Uber's profits, not the profit margin of the drivers.....
(and just for that one period of time)
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Currently I only drive the pink stache guys when they offer me a weekly minimum, which works about about one week a month. I supplement with a couple of smaller partial week bonus runs with the other team. I estimate driving expenses to be about 25-30% of that pay, but about 50% when I'm grinding without a promo.
Goodfella
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So is this treating the cost to acquire new riders/drivers as a ride cost?
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
More like I cash out and wonder where my money went.
The cost of a replacement vehicle is largely capital depreciation. (Particularly since there's a max age for Uber/Lyft vehicles.)
Farm Boy
I hope you dance
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They have a max age? Eeeewwww. That says uncomplimentary things about the company and the customer base.
Right about the depreciation. If you're at all handy though, there's profit to be had in extracting value out of depreciation. The car is going to depreciate anyways. If you can get about 100,000 to 150,000 service miles out of it, once you account for routine maintenance, fuel, and (increasing) repair(self-labor ameliorated), you can take the cost of replacing it(dunno, 10k - 20k ish for a commuter car with over 100,000mi left in it, right-ish?), you can ballpark about how much per mile you need to budget to replace. If you aren't budgeting to replace, and you're operating extra miles on the vehicle just for the cash, then you're essentially just pulling whatever cash you can out of the depreciation, right? I mean, you can live off of depreciation for a long time, depending, especially if you're comfortable with your equipment. I'd call it something complimentary, like being business-minded or skilled or thrifty, or something.
I mean, right? You both do this differently than I do, you have neat takes on it.
Right about the depreciation. If you're at all handy though, there's profit to be had in extracting value out of depreciation. The car is going to depreciate anyways. If you can get about 100,000 to 150,000 service miles out of it, once you account for routine maintenance, fuel, and (increasing) repair(self-labor ameliorated), you can take the cost of replacing it(dunno, 10k - 20k ish for a commuter car with over 100,000mi left in it, right-ish?), you can ballpark about how much per mile you need to budget to replace. If you aren't budgeting to replace, and you're operating extra miles on the vehicle just for the cash, then you're essentially just pulling whatever cash you can out of the depreciation, right? I mean, you can live off of depreciation for a long time, depending, especially if you're comfortable with your equipment. I'd call it something complimentary, like being business-minded or skilled or thrifty, or something.
I mean, right? You both do this differently than I do, you have neat takes on it.
Narz
keeping it real
It's by time & by miles plus a base fare.
TBH it's barely worth it unless it's surging or I get good tips but I need the money & it's something I can do in my freetime, anytime. And it's helping me learn about my neighborhood & get me off the Interwebs, out of my house & being somewhat social. Also I figure eventually I'll drive a woman who will invite me in.
My timing buying a car wasn't ideal, gas has gone up about 20c per gallon since then.
Berzerker
Deity
Never drove a cab but I did drive airport shuttle in OC to LAX for 2-3 years, mainly graveyard shift - I loved it. I hated the day shift, the clogged freeways were giant caterpillars or inch worms. At night I was free, more or less... But it was still more pressure than driving cabs, cant have people missing their planes.
We did shuttle the stewardesses between Long Beach and John Wayne airports
I fell in love each trip.
We did shuttle the stewardesses between Long Beach and John Wayne airports
I fell in love each trip.
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
Yeah you’re basically grinding away your car into cash, plus time, risk, and effort.
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
So Uber/Lyft are subsidized by the Viet-Cong?
Sure, you can turn depreciation into cash... but if there's no profit margin, you could also just sell the car for cash.
If you're good at repairing cars, you're probably better off just doing that as a full time job rather than repairing your Ubermobile.
Venture Capital.
Oerdin
Deity
Uber and Lyft both love to cheat their drivers by charging customers surge prices then telling the drivers it was a normal faire allowing the company to pocket the difference. Seriously, it is a horrible job and with a slight amount of effort you can get a far better one.
There are non-mechanic jobs that split the difference in skill required.
I kinda doubt that. It would be trivial to discover and would result in easy fraud lawsuit wins for drivers.
And it defeats the point of surge pricing, which is to incentivize more drivers to drive during periods of high demand.
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