A modern car from honda/toyota maintained properly is good for well over 250k miles. I've seen plenty of these calculations and they always seem to use the worse case as the example. Also.. Next time don't buy a chevy.
Income of an uber driver
21–30 of 52 posts
Re: Income of an uber driver
#22To those of who you are against including the depreciation cost of the car. Here's the math: Income: He works 10-12 hours to make $150/day and works every day of hte year. He will make $54,750 Expenses: He calculated 94,900 miles driven total assuming working 365 days a year. That's about 260 miles a day of driving. Gas cost $12,775 Oil changes $855 Tire replacement $960 Misc Repairs: $5000 So that adds up to $19,950…
It's interesting that the final wage comes out to around exactly what minimum wage is. Market forces at work? Driving for UberX isn't exactly a skilled job, and there are enough people with driver's licenses out there that there will always be enough supply of labor (unlike, say, software engineers). Basically, Uber is paying minimum wage not really any different than Walmart, which is around what you'd expect for a…
Minimum wage only if you consider 365 days of work at 10 hours/day...
If you drive Uber for only 8h / day 5 days a week, you'll go way under that.
Re: Income of an uber driver
#23Correct me if i'm wrong, but Uber started out as a service that connected people without a ride to those who happened to be on the road within a few miles away and willing to give a lift for a few bucks. So what happened? Did Uber pivot or did people start building their lives around Uber and became dissatisfied with the their business model? I don't quite understand this mainly because I don't live in a city where Uber is very popular.
Re: Income of an uber driver
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting that the final wage comes out to around exactly what minimum wage is. Market forces at work? Driving for UberX isn't exactly a skilled job, and there are enough people with driver's licenses out there that there will always be enough supply of labor (unlike, say, software engineers). Basically, Uber is paying minimum wage not really any different than Walmart, which is around what you'd expect for a…
Minimum wage only if you consider 365 days of work at 10 hours/day... If you drive Uber for only 8h / day 5 days a week, you'll go way under that.
Minimum wage is calculated hourly, and as such it doesn't matter how many hours a day or how many days a year you work.
The vast majority of minimum wage workers DO NOT work anything close to every day of the year, and it's very weird that you'd expect that of people.
Re: Income of an uber driver
#25To those of who you are against including the depreciation cost of the car. Here's the math: Income: He works 10-12 hours to make $150/day and works every day of hte year. He will make $54,750 Expenses: He calculated 94,900 miles driven total assuming working 365 days a year. That's about 260 miles a day of driving. Gas cost $12,775 Oil changes $855 Tire replacement $960 Misc Repairs: $5000 So that adds up to $19,950…
On the other hand, most minimum wage jobs don't reimburse you for the costs or time spent commuting to and from work. I wonder if that significantly impacts the comparison.
In the other direction, I think the US also has higher self-employment taxes, and of course you don't get health insurance and other benefits. I wonder if that impacts the comparison, too.
Re: Income of an uber driver
#26The costs include TWO new cars and a ton of other miscellaneous fees. I'm sure that the point being made is valid to some extent, but the calculations are way out of proportion.
This entire thing shows just how terrible people are at figuring out the math.
1. All told, he calculates $12,000 in depreciation costs him $30,500, because he inexplicably adds a new car at the end of the year to his costs.
2. If the manufacturer recommends an oil change every 5,000 miles, they also recommend one every six months regardless of mileage. So two of those oil changes are "free", but he still gets to deduct them from taxes I would guess.
3. He figured out he forgot to include insurance, but then didn't take the time to include it. He has to pay for insurance anyway, but will now get to deduct from taxes. The only real cost here will be the increase in his premiums when his insurance company figures out what he's doing.
4. People chiming in that you should only drive for Uber part time. The profit per mile is probably worse for part time driving, but it certainly isn't better.
5. One guy seems really upset that he used 94,900 miles to do the calculations, since this is nearly an impossible number of miles to drive in a year. It doesn't matter. If it takes him two or three years, the numbers work out basically the same because he is really basing them all on mileage, not time.
Re: Income of an uber driver
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting that the final wage comes out to around exactly what minimum wage is. Market forces at work? Driving for UberX isn't exactly a skilled job, and there are enough people with driver's licenses out there that there will always be enough supply of labor (unlike, say, software engineers). Basically, Uber is paying minimum wage not really any different than Walmart, which is around what you'd expect for a…
Minimum wage only if you consider 365 days of work at 10 hours/day... If you drive Uber for only 8h / day 5 days a week, you'll go way under that.
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Re: Income of an uber driver
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting that the final wage comes out to around exactly what minimum wage is. Market forces at work? Driving for UberX isn't exactly a skilled job, and there are enough people with driver's licenses out there that there will always be enough supply of labor (unlike, say, software engineers). Basically, Uber is paying minimum wage not really any different than Walmart, which is around what you'd expect for a…
Minimum wage only if you consider 365 days of work at 10 hours/day... If you drive Uber for only 8h / day 5 days a week, you'll go way under that.
Presumably you would have less wear and tear on the car by driving it less. This entirely accepts the initial purchase of the car as a sunk cost, so the number of hours doesn't really factor in, the rest of the costs are all hourly, unlikely the car purchase which is a one time cost.
Re: Income of an uber driver
#29So...he uses his personal car to drive for Uber, then deducts the cost of the car from the money he made and says he ended up with nothing? It's like someone running AirBnB in their house and spending all money on mortgage and then saying that they make no money on AirBnb. Unless, of course, he uses the car for absolutely nothing else apart from driving for Uber, and wouldn't get a car otherwise.
Re: Income of an uber driver
#30[deleted]