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Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

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Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#161

Post by metalliqaz »

ghshephard wrote: post #151
jdlyga wrote: post #147

Uber, Lyft, and Juno only exist because the Taxi apps are bad or non-existent. If there was a Taxi app that worked exactly like these 3 apps, and not just for hailing taxis, then there would be no need for this.

That is entirely dependent on where you live and the quality of the Taxis. For example, in the London and Singapore, Taxis are awesome. In California, (particularly in the Bay area) - Taxis are horrible beyond belief. The cars are unsafe and uncomfortable, the drivers are terrible and lack knowledge. It's often the case that I will come out of a peninsula hotel (Say, San Mateo) and see a queue of taxis waiting to pic…

In front of that hotel in San Mateo, are the Uber customers chasing a better experience, or a better deal?

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#162

Post by s73v3r_ »

bitcurious wrote: post #42
martin_bech wrote: post #38

3 problems. 1. This is at subsidised Uber pricing, where Uber is loosing money at an alarming rate. 2. This means driving for Uber is terrible economicly. 3. This also implies that even getting to driverless cars, Uber will only save 3.37 per hour, not making the business model viable, I would think.

3. This also implies that even getting to driverless cars, Uber will only save 3.37 per hour, not making the business model viable, I would think. Should be higher. Insurance, energy and maintenance will be cheaper at the scale of Uber's fleet. Driving style might be optimized for MPG. Cars will be available 24/7 with no downtime.

But now Uber is responsible for purchasing the vehicles and the maintenance on them.

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#163

Post by ashelmire »

wgerard wrote: post #138
ashelmire wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is making $20/hr net income driving at night (pretty average for big cities according to this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1s08BdVqCgrZWZkV0ZfZnhGUGc... ), do you really think the wear costs are more than a few bucks per hour?

Usage costs for cars are usually tagged at around $0.50-$0.60 per mile [1]. Looking around, seems like the average 8 hour uber driver is putting on about 100-200 miles per shift [2]. So assuming 150 miles per 8 hours, the average uber driver is paying about $11/hr in fuel and depreciation costs. So the net income after that would probably be more like $9/hr. 1: http://newsroom.aaa.com/tag/driving-cost-per-mile/ 2: ht…

The analysis I linked above calculated the net earnings after all expenses as being ~$13/hr on average (and included all registration and insurance costs as well as the AAA figure in expenses). That would mean higher hourly earnings for part-time drivers in big cities (who often only work Friday/Saturday nights).

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#164

Post by s73v3r_ »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #84
bitcurious wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3. This also implies that even getting to driverless cars, Uber will only save 3.37 per hour, not making the business model viable, I would think. Should be higher. Insurance, energy and maintenance will be cheaper at the scale of Uber's fleet. Driving style might be optimized for MPG. Cars will be available 24/7 with no downtime.

They'll save more than that. They'll be registering/insuring the vehicles in a state where it's cheap to do so. Uber's geographic distribution results in the average uber driving paying significantly more baseline cost just to legally field the vehicle. Being able to choose your jurisdiction is probably a ~$1k per year savings over the current Uber driver average. TBH one of the things I'm looking forward to about se…

Every state in the union requires you to register your vehicles in the state they're in. You're not going to be able to register the cars in Deleware or South Dakota and have them driving in California.

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#166

Post by s73v3r_ »

eqdw wrote: post #71

Ways in which this headline is potentially misleading: 1) Driving for Uber/Lyft/etc is not a full time job, and was not intended to be a full time job. It's a piecemeal work side job. The flexibility of working when you want, and not working when you don't want, is valuable and you don't get it for free. 2) "Profit" is not income. This is profit net of expenses. Expenses that, among other things, you can write off ag…

"Driving for Uber/Lyft/etc is not a full time job, and was not intended to be a full time job."

It absolutely is, and the way their incentives are structured, they clearly do mean it to be.

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#167

Post by dopamean »

regulation_d wrote: post #111
misterbishop wrote: post #41

Discussing a rideshare worker's take-home pay as "profit" really accepts the framing of the company. Yes it's technically true that each driver is an independent contractor ("Small Business Owner"), but this designation is a farce without the ability to set pricing. The take-home pay isn't profit in practice, it's wages less unreimbursed expenses.

Let’s say I’m a dry wall contractor. A general contractor comes along and offers me $20k for a job. I say “$25k?” and he says, “No, $20k.” If I take the job I am not magically transformed into an employee of his, simply because I lacked the bargaining power to negotiate the rate. The reason I am still a contractor is that I have absolute control over whether to agree to do that job at that price. There are obviously…

Where in the Uber app can drivers even attempt to negotiate their rates with Uber?

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#168

Post by liamhawkins »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #148
qudat wrote: post #141

And yet people still do it. I guess the drivers still find it useful, if they didn't, why would they continue driving?

Because they have literally no other choice? When your choice is to lose money driving for Uber, or starve, you kinda lose the ability to stop if you don't find it "useful".

I'm not defending Uber/Lift here, I completely agree that there is a mismatch between the perception of being an Uber driver and reality, but I don't fully understand this argument. If they have "literally no other choice" were they starving before Uber/Lift existed? These companies haven't existed that long, and the majority of Uber/Lift drivers are not former/current taxi driver that now need to use these apps because the market has shifted. These are people who Is it better for a space like this to not exist if it can't supply the 7/10/15$/hour that would be deemed acceptable? I genuinely don't know.

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#169

Post by s73v3r_ »

filesystem wrote: post #8

“Of the five sources of cost estimated per mile (Insurance, Maintenance, Repairs, Fuel and Depreciation), approximately 40% of costs are attributable to Insurance, Maintenance and Repairs, 40% to fuel expenses, and 20% to depreciation.” I don’t understand how insurance is a relevant cost. Insurance is required to legally operate a vehicle - this is something that they must have for their personal vehicle regardless o…

Regular insurance doesn't cover Uber driving. You need an additional policy, which costs more.

Re: Uber, Lyft Drivers Earning a Median Profit of $3.37 per Hour, Study Says

#170

Post by drag0nballz »

neaden wrote: post #159
maratd wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you 'contract' to just one employer you're an employee for both tax purposes and protections. That's not the case in the US. Our laws bar the contractor from having set hours, a set place of work, and a myriad of other rules. So if a contractor comes in 9 to 5 and has his own desk, he'll be classified as an employee. Honestly, I would prefer a similar % rule, that seems simpler and I think would accomplish the i…

The problem with the percent rule is that people could easily fall in and out of it. If we imagine someone who is an Uber driver but also works part time as an employee at another business, depending on how many hours they get in a given week as a part time employee they could go above or below the 80% figure. From Uber's standpoint you could also have two people who each drive for 10 hours a week earning the same pa…

Exactly -- and companies would not want to hire contractors because it's impossible for them to know if someone is going to be treated as an employee all of a sudden (say they hired them part-time but their other p/t gig ended). I don't know how Australia deals with this.
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