Uber has been around for over 10 years now. Sure, not everyone is an accountant, but if Uber drained every driver's wallet, they'd have noticed by now. Interesting that it's usually only people who have never driven for Uber that claim it's completely unprofitable.
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What is the catch? Drivers do not make any money while driving to pick someone up or after dropping someone off. Often, when I tried out driving, about half the miles driven were without a fare.
Subtract the service fees from those numbers and it gets less lucrative.
One thing to note about Uber drivers is they’re typically putting 50-75k+ miles per year on their cars. I’m curious what that does to those depreciation/etc figures.
All in costs around 30 cents seems right. That assumes absolute worst case depreciation too. And don't forget, the government lets you deduct 58 cents/mile off your taxes, so you actually make a profit off every mile driven.
If you are spending .30 and deducting .58, you need to multiply the .58 by your tax rate.
You can’t simply say .58 - .30 is .28 and that is a profit of .28. Deductions don’t work that way.
30 cents per mile costs is also extremely low, at least on average.
How many people do you personally know that make their living as an Uber driver? I don't mean pensioners making beer money, or people doing it as a side job, here.
I know one. He's been doing it for a year and half, or so. He doesn't own his car. he has to lease it on a weekly basis, and he's paying through the nose for the privilege. He's doing it because his credit is shit, and he has no savings to buy a car outright.
He's getting ahead, but if driver rates get cut, he'll be going right back to being a line cook.
Still, the math isn't much different for a Corolla or Civic. And the more you drive, the cheaper the cost per mile is.
Personally, I don't know anyone driving full time, but still know several driving 10 or so hours per week and they make about $300 for it.
It will vary by year and city, but generally speaking Toyotas tend to dominate ride share with Camry usually #1, then Prius, Corolla, and RAV4. However, the long tail is very long and you're about as likely to get a ride in a less cost effective vehicle.
As usual, you are conflsting your singular consumer experience of Uber with the global business giant Uber.
I do disagree on Ubers. I see very few Priuses, but there's a different explanation to that, that I missed. Casual drivers, people doing it as a side thing, or for beer money didn't optimize their car purchase for the purpose of driving a taxi. I suppose full-time drivers are more likely to drive one.
