Miles are overrated as a unit of wear. I sincerely doubt a one year old car with 100k miles will require replacement. I would double or triple the authors expected vehicle lifespan.
Income of an uber driver
31–40 of 52 posts
Re: Income of an uber driver
#32To 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…
Why is his daily mileage so high? He states he makes $1.10 per mile, drives 260 miles a day, but only makes $150 a day.
This implies that less than half his mileage is being utilized. With an operating cost of about $0.22/mile (it's actually higher given depreciation from excess mileage - I'd guess it's closer to $0.3), he is probably making maybe $0.36/mile driven. (factoring depreciation, My take-aways:
1. The biggest surprise is how low his mileage utilization is. With an efficient dispatch system that Uber offers, I would have expected much higher mileage utilization -- someone shouldn't need to drive around for long searching for rides like a taxi would.
2. He needs to get a more fuel efficient car. His MPG is only 26, which hurts his bottom line.
Re: Income of an uber driver
#33So...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.
With AirBnb, you rent out an item that is mainly fixed costs and incurs little variable costs per utilization. With p2p car rental like Get-around, it's the opposite. with Uber, it's even more so on variable costs, as it actively requires your time.
Re: Income of an uber driver
#34To 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…
Why is his daily mileage so high? He states he makes $1.10 per mile, drives 260 miles a day, but only makes $150 a day. This implies that less than half his mileage is being utilized. With an operating cost of about $0.22/mile (it's actually higher given depreciation from excess mileage - I'd guess it's closer to $0.3), he is probably making maybe $0.36/mile driven. (factoring depreciation, My take-aways: 1. The bigg…
> Why is his daily mileage so high? He states he makes $1.10 per mile, drives 260 miles a day, but only makes $150 a day.
He's not paid for the mileage spent on the way to pick up someone, only after they get in.
Re: Income of an uber driver
#35To 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…
Why is his daily mileage so high? He states he makes $1.10 per mile, drives 260 miles a day, but only makes $150 a day. This implies that less than half his mileage is being utilized. With an operating cost of about $0.22/mile (it's actually higher given depreciation from excess mileage - I'd guess it's closer to $0.3), he is probably making maybe $0.36/mile driven. (factoring depreciation, My take-aways: 1. The bigg…
He does say that his MPG is normally 30 when driving for himself, but becomes lower when driving rides because of all the waiting and stop starting.
Re: Income of an uber driver
#36To 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…
You can't count both depreciation and the cost of a new car. If you include depreciation, you should only count the transaction costs of a new car (taxes, fees). Otherwise, you're counting the decrease in car value twice: once as the value decreases and once when you replace that lost value with a new car.
Re: Income of an uber driver
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is his daily mileage so high? He states he makes $1.10 per mile, drives 260 miles a day, but only makes $150 a day. This implies that less than half his mileage is being utilized. With an operating cost of about $0.22/mile (it's actually higher given depreciation from excess mileage - I'd guess it's closer to $0.3), he is probably making maybe $0.36/mile driven. (factoring depreciation, My take-aways: 1. The bigg…
> Why is his daily mileage so high? He states he makes $1.10 per mile, drives 260 miles a day, but only makes $150 a day. He's not paid for the mileage spent on the way to pick up someone, only after they get in.
Or on his way home (unless he happens to get a passenger going to his neighborhood).
Re: Income of an uber driver
#38The 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 ded…
>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.
Some times of day are much more profitable than others because there are a lot more people taking rides, so there's less time spent waiting and shorter distance between each ride.
Re: Income of an uber driver
#39To 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.
> most minimum wage jobs don't reimburse you for the costs or time spent commuting to and from work
The compensating factor here would that Uber drivers are not compensated for the time/distance traveled to pickup point.
> I think the US also has higher self-employment taxes
The carrot with that is more generous allowances for tax optimization (deductions, SEP IRA limits).
> you don't get health insurance and other benefits
That is on par with other minimum wage jobs.
Re: Income of an uber driver
#40It seems like Uber drivers often don't understand the economics of driving for Uber. Fulltime driving for Uber only seems to make sense for people who have no other choice and are very frugal (or negligent) about their car. Part time may make sense for some people with too much "car" and time on hand. Against both of these groups, the desperate and the part-timers, it's hard to compete and make a living...
Repairs are not linear with miles driven. If you average vary low mileage (aka under 6k / year) you can bump that up to ~6k/year on the cheap as many components like tires age even if there not being used.
http://www.edmunds.com/car-care/how-old-and-dangerous-are-yo...
I suspect many city drivers could work for at peak times late Friday and on the weakened without adding a lot of maintenance costs.