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Thread: Do uber or lyft drivers make any money after expenses?

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    Default Do uber or lyft drivers make any money after expenses?

    There are numerous stories Uber and Lyft drivers recounting how much money they are making. As an example:
    Rideshare driving for Uber, Lyft profitable, exciting | SanDiegoUnionTribune.com

    This driver, a tax accountant, claims to be making NET $2200. a month. But is he, really?

    He writes that: "I maintained between a 60 percent to 65 percent profit margin through my first nine months of driving in 2015 and that’s after the 20 percent Lyft and Uber fee paid, gas and taxes plus cash tips."

    However, clearly he is deducting only for gas and taxes. Is that all there is to it as far as expenses? Certainly in some areas we have tolls, but forget toll roads, and consider what it REALLY costs to drive a car:

    The cost of owning and driving a car includes not just gas, but registration (Department of Motor Vehicles), insurance, depreciation (both as the car ages and for MILES driven on it which includes wear and tear), gas and repairs (including wear and tear). When it comes right down to it, a car has a "life" and the more miles driven the closer the car gets to near zero value, and the time to junk it. The more a car is driven too, the more chance there is of an accident, which if your fault, can raise insurance rates and incur out of pocket expenses such as the insurance deductible. All accidents depreciate the value of the car, as it becomes an "accident" car.

    The Automobile Club presents varying costs PER MILE of driving a car
    Your Driving Costs | AAA Exchange
    which average about fifty five cents per mile.

    Yes, that's 55 cents per mile (average cost - with a low being 38 and a high being 93.3) to drive a car.

    So, when a Uber driver drives say 100 miles, including the distance to pick up the fare and return to wherever he was, it has cost him not just a little gas to drive the miles, but 100 miles x 55 cents a mile or $55.00 ! (average, it could cost much more for a large or luxury car).

    Uber average pay is $15. per hour, but even at say $20. per hour (which is before Uber takes its 20% cut), if a driver spends an hour on a fare, and drives 100 miles between getting to the fare and back, he is not making anything, but is actually losing thirty five dollars an hour!

    Add to this the directive that Uber supposedly gives its drivers that they KEEP MOVING (not park for any length of time while on duty), and it seems impossible for any Uber driver to make any money, when considered against the average fifty five cents per mile cost to drive a car.

    Granted, a complete analysis of the net earned by a Uber driver would need to account for the cost of driving the car versus the cost of just letting the car sit in the garage. A car left sitting in the car still eats up registration, insurance and the depreciation of time (but not mileage), and some maintenance costs are incurred even with no miles driven (for example, oil changes, which are suggested at intervals of time even if miles are not incurred).

    But what this analysis shows, is that Uber drivers aren't really making any money at all, rather, they are AT BEST - CONVERTING the asset of their car into cash - burning up the value of the car through driving, and taking this as cash in their pockets. For some Uber drivers who would perhaps otherwise earn no other money and just leave their cars in their garage, this may make some sense, but no Uber driver should be deluded into thinking that the cash he collects, less cost of gas, is his net income.

  2. #2
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    Interesting too - apparently having a non-violent non-sexual nature offense on your criminal record in California does not preclude you from driving for Uber.
    Uber Loosens Background Check Policy For California Drivers - Fortune

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