51–60 of 127 posts
This article seems to ignore the added revenue from a driver having a car and driving people around for Uber. The better metric is probably the average profitability of a driver with a leased vehicle.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are there any metrics on how well these sovereign wealth funds are actually doing? I often see them making big bets, with some definitely paying off (e.g. Kingdom Holding and Twitter), but I wonder how well they do across the board.
Not that they are doing badly, but to some degree they don't have to perform well to be successful. Their primary goal is to transform a currently-limitless stream of oil money into a sustainable source of wealth and income when the spigot turns off in a generation or two. Same for China overseas investments, it's a way to turn RMB-denominated cash into hard assets in democratic countries with stable political enviro…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, clearly the driver DOES benefit, if Uber is losing $9,000 per car. That's money that the lessee should have paid in an economically fair transaction. In all fairness, a bunch of people are paying a little too much, while a small minority are getting most of the benefit, e.g. people who default on their loan, or who drive the car into the ground in three months and then return it. But, that in a nutshell is…
>Actually, clearly the driver DOES benefit, if Uber is losing $9,000 per car. The drivers that exit the lease early benefit in that they are able to without huge penalty. They didn't net much out of the whole relationship though. How much do they make a day after subtracting $17/day just for the vehicle, plus whatever fuel costs are, self employment tax, commercial insurance, etc? For drivers that keep the car for a…
- for those who returned the car after months, this is an option that just isn't available in an ordinary lease - in some cases, death is not enough to cancel a lease. These folks would have been left making all of the payments on the car for the rest of the term. Plus, ordinary leases have very low mileage caps. They may not have made much money, but they would have lost thousands if they had a conventional lease.
- for those who keep the car say 3 years and put on 200k miles: they would pay a total of $18k and return the car with a couple thousand dollars of value. If the purchase price was say $22k, then they got a completely fair deal.
That's the thing - I don't think the terms were sub-prime at all, they were simply priced to only appeal to serious professional drivers working 50-60 hours and 1500 miles per week, which is not atypical for cabbies and limo drivers (mileage might even be low).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought it was a "plain" lease with maintenance (and tires, etc.) in charge of the user not a "full service" lease. If it was the latter, then yes, but it would be "suicide", not even the "perfect world" example where the driver pays every month for the full period can possibly work. EDIT: Found it, is just "basic maintenance": https://help.uber.com/h/ba3a48f4-07ae-4836-9d5a-6df170210d6f >- Oil change and tire rota…
Taxi style use generally qualifies for shorter oil change intervals. Including that in the lease probably helps the vehicles stay maintained and resellable.
A number of people (particularly in the US, but not only) change their oil every 3-5,000 miles for reasons like:
- my father always changed oil every 3,000 (or 4,000 or 5,000) miles
- a friend of mine who races changes it every 2,500 miles so changing it every double that is appropriate
- the dealer (or the mechanic just around the corner) told me to change the oil every 5,000 miles or the engine will explode
Of course the Toyota engineers (mind you the same ones that designed, produced and tested for a few zillions miles the thingy that you chose to buy, implying that you trust them overall) saying 10,000 miles are a bunch of incompetent morons, what do they know?
http://toyota.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/7604/rela...
Seriously, the 10,000 miles for (partially) syntethic oil is on the very low of the expected range of duration of a modern oil on a modern engine, i.e. it is a conservative enough duration, 12,000 to 15,000 is common.
And IF there is something that makes an oil or engine go bad is NOT "continued use" (like taxi use) but rather cold starts after long periods of inactivity (or racing, for other reasons).
In this the other also mostly psychological "limit" of "oil must be changed every six months no matter how many miles" has some more background reasons.
Still a (partially) synthetic oil is good for much more than that, usually 1 year at the very least.
Fully synthetic oils (very expensive) can last much more (but you need to change filters ever 10-15,000 miles anyway).
Uber is playing both sides of the table which is ok if you are profitable overall. But not ok if you are losing money on both sides. Uber will go a full Groupon soon.
It's like a mob running a casino that's laundering money and it bankrupts itself, you know, like the Taj Mahal in New Jersey. It takes an astonishing lack of talent to make that happen.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Actually, clearly the driver DOES benefit, if Uber is losing $9,000 per car. The drivers that exit the lease early benefit in that they are able to without huge penalty. They didn't net much out of the whole relationship though. How much do they make a day after subtracting $17/day just for the vehicle, plus whatever fuel costs are, self employment tax, commercial insurance, etc? For drivers that keep the car for a…
I agree that the entire enterprise might be a bad deal for buyers, BUT: - for those who returned the car after months, this is an option that just isn't available in an ordinary lease - in some cases, death is not enough to cancel a lease. These folks would have been left making all of the payments on the car for the rest of the term. Plus, ordinary leases have very low mileage caps. They may not have made much money…
https://www.uber.com/drive/vehicle-solutions/leasing/
"The majority of eligible vehicles will be pre-leased and/or pre-owned inventory"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh. The lease terms are crappy for the buyer as well. So, yes, funny in that Lyft would benefit in that scenario. The driver certainly doesn't though.
Actually, clearly the driver DOES benefit, if Uber is losing $9,000 per car. That's money that the lessee should have paid in an economically fair transaction. In all fairness, a bunch of people are paying a little too much, while a small minority are getting most of the benefit, e.g. people who default on their loan, or who drive the car into the ground in three months and then return it. But, that in a nutshell is…
The idea that one could lease a vehicle from Uber, at a significant loss to Uber, then turn around and use that vehicle to drive for Lyft, is absolutely hilarious.
Yet another example of VC ending up subsidizing America. We could just cut out the middleperson and go to basic income paid for by VCs.
For people who don't want to look it up... Some of the biggest are pension funds! It's not just high net worth individuals or companies, it's also mom & pop retirement funds.
https://www.quora.com/Who-are-the-biggest-investors-limited-...
I am not sure to understand. The example 2014 Toyota Corolla at US$122 per week makes in a 130 weeks lease with Xchange some 122x130= 15,860 US$ and a 2.5 years (high mileage) old Corolla may still have some minimal residual value, let's say US$ 1,500. I.e. roughly total reimbursement of the list price of the car: http://toyotanews.pressroom.toyota.com/releases/2014+toyota+... Assuming that cars in such a situation a…
> a 2.5 years (high mileage) old Corolla may still have some minimal residual value, let's say US$ 1,500. Even on the wholesale market, I'd wager it's several time that amount...
If (as it is reported here and there) an Uber driver needs to make 3,000 miles per month, the car after 30 months would be more likely to be in the 90,000 - 100,000 range, i.e. the same as a 10-12 years car, i.e. an "end of life" car.
Even if only 2.5 years old, upholstery, seats, plasric accessories, etc will likley show the wear from use.
Such a car can only be sold to "particular" customers.
But if the value is bigger, then it is another reason why the 9,000 US$ lost per car are simply too much.