Originally Posted by
Miami305
Has anyone come across a well-written breakdown of what the breakeven point for a driver actually is? (Obviously picking an arbitrary vehicle and fuel cost).
No, but by my back of the envelope math UberX in most markets is a pretty terrible way to make a living. I find it hard to believe that anybody can make a full time job out of it.
The price cuts seem likely to make UberX the exclusive domain of people who want to pick up a few extra bucks in their free time and people who are unemployed and want to find a way to keep up with their car payments until they find a real job.
I used UberX to fetch my grandparents in a major Texas city a few weeks ago, for example. They got caught in traffic. The total fare for a 6 mile, 37 minute ride was $12.77. Take away $.25 city tax, $1.95 safe rides fee and 25% Uber commission (I'm not sure if it's 25% in Houston, but I think it's somewhere in the 20-30% range), and the driver received about $8 for almost an hour of work (37 minutes paid ride time, plus it probably took him 10-15 minutes to get to them to pick them up). And that's before he pays for gas, let alone the actual cost of acquiring, registering, insuring and maintaining his car. Or taxes (although for tax purposes he may have lost money on that trip) or health insurance.
When there's less traffic it's possible a driver might squeeze three or four rides in an hour instead of just one. But it's got to be tough to consistently average over $10/hour of net pay in markets like that, especially once you factor in the cost of the car.