# 54 cents/mile USA Driver "Truthers" - Listen Up



## Undermensch

Hi All,

I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.

I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.

Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.

This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!

*Cost Inputs*
Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.

Base Rental Price
$210 / week

Rental / Mile Price
None - Unlimited Miles

Taxes
Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15

Insurance
Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included

Total Rental Cost
$315 / week

Gasoline
Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline

*Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*

1,000 miles / week
Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
*29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!

1,300 miles / week
Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
*42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!

1,600 miles / week
Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
*48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!

*Enterprise Makes Money*
Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.

The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.

Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).

*Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*

Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
1,300 miles

Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
30%

*Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*

Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
Remove Tax: -$15 / week
Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
*Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*

1,000 miles / week
Rental: 21 cents / mile
Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
*48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!

1,300 miles / week
Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
*57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!

1,600 miles / week
Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
*63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!

*Applying this to My Driving*
I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.

If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.

Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.


Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*

Driving My Car
My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings


*Conclusions*
No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.

What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.

That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.

When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.

If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


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## Backdash

All that effort...


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## Undermensch

Backdash said:


> All that effort...


Well, it was fun, I like to write 

I've got my asbestos jacket on, I'm ready.


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## Disgusted Driver

Actually, a good way to make the case by comparing to Enterprise. 

All situations different however. I drive Select, larger, newer car. My costs are in the low to mid 30's per mile and I would do very well if there was some select business in the area. If I had a steady supply of rides, I would easily make $18-20 an hour but they have oversaturated the market, reduced the "quality" of the product by allowing Camry's and Accords as well as BMW 3 series to qualify. So I mostly sit at home and make about $14 or 15 an hour for the fraction of an hour when I run ou to handle a call.

What's your mileage rate and average trip. Here in RDU land, X is .70 a mile and .14 a minute. Average trip is just 2 or 3 miles so it's hard to get a decent size fare and minimize dead miles. You are getting .85 and .15, not great but better than what we are seeing.


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## Taxi Driver in Arizona

Undermensch said:


> Well, it was fun, I like to write
> 
> I've got my asbestos jacket on, I'm ready.


Nerd.

You are correct in your assertion that driving an old Prius will cost way less than the IRS standard mileage deduction.

You're still a nerd with all those numbers and whatnot up there.


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## Simon

Artofbeingcheap.com/calculator

Mileage start = A
Mileage finish = B
Cost per mile = C
Total Fares = D
Uber fee = E
Vehicle Cost(B-AxC) = F

B-AxC=F
D-E-F= profit

-30%(avg) for Fed taxes, State taxes, social sec, medicaid.

Think im good on that. Post your solutions.


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## Adbam

A normal person can't buy a car for the wholesale prices enterprise can buy one for.

Also if you think you can make $900 dollars a week and only pay 10 cents a mile in maintenance and gas on a 2008 u live in a make belive world. Tires shocks power steering alternator brakes all will be bad soon. 

Making 900 a week u are putting over 50k miles a year on your car. How long is your car going to last? All that work and you think 10 cents is all it costs.

What's .10 x 150000 miles? 15,000. Buying your car, maintenance and gas costs more than 15,000 every 3 years for an uber driver.


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## Undermensch

Disgusted Driver said:


> Actually, a good way to make the case by comparing to Enterprise.
> 
> All situations different however. I drive Select, larger, newer car. My costs are in the low to mid 30's per mile and I would do very well if there was some select business in the area. If I had a steady supply of rides, I would easily make $18-20 an hour but they have oversaturated the market, reduced the "quality" of the product by allowing Camry's and Accords as well as BMW 3 series to qualify. So I mostly sit at home and make about $14 or 15 an hour for the fraction of an hour when I run ou to handle a call.
> 
> What's your mileage rate and average trip. Here in RDU land, X is .70 a mile and .14 a minute. Average trip is just 2 or 3 miles so it's hard to get a decent size fare and minimize dead miles. You are getting .85 and .15, not great but better than what we are seeing.


Thank you. Yeah, my point is to just debunk the "your car costs you 54 cents / mile" blanket statements.

I agree that actual costs vary per car and with the age of the car. People need to be aware of their own costs, measure them, control them, and not drive if they can't make a profit.

The 54 cents / mile truthers do a disservice to other drivers and potential drivers. I don't mind if other drivers make money. In fact, I hope enough new drivers join to push the truthers out


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## Undermensch

Taxi Driver in Arizona said:


> Nerd.


Nerds are cool these days, so I'll take that as a compliment, thanks!


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## Undermensch

Simon said:


> Artofbeingcheap.com/calculator
> 
> Mileage start = A
> Mileage finish = B
> Cost per mile = C
> Total Fares = D
> Uber fee = E
> Vehicle Cost(B-AxC) = F
> 
> B-AxC=F
> D-E-F= profit
> 
> -30%(avg) for Fed taxes, State taxes, social sec, medicaid.
> 
> Think im good on that. Post your solutions.


Almost, but not quite. Two issues with that:

Cost Per Mile - That's what this thread is about and what the truthers claim is 54 cents / mile for everyone (it's not)
-30% for taxes - Missing a step
F - (F - (B - A) * 0.54) * 0.3 = After Tax Profit
The profit is not all taxable since a good portion of it is shielded by the 54 cents / mile deduction

Otherwise, correct.


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## Undermensch

Adbam said:


> A normal person can't buy a car for the wholesale prices enterprise can buy one for.
> 
> Also if you think you can make $900 dollars a week and only pay 10 cents a mile in maintenance and gas on a 2008 u live in a make belive world. Tires shocks power steering alternator brakes all will be bad soon.
> 
> Making 900 a week u are putting over 50k miles a year on your car. How long is your car going to last? All that work and you think 10 cents is all it costs.
> 
> What's .10 x 150000 miles? 15,000. Buying your car, maintenance and gas costs more than 15,000 every 3 years for an uber driver.


The overall point of this is to prove that expenses are not 54 cents / mile... not to argue about what my specific expenses are.

Regarding Enterprise - What sort of discount do you think they are getting? It's not more than 10-15%, max. But remember they are buying new, they are not buying used cars like UberX drivers should be driving. You should not be in a 2015 vehicle for UberX. But, go ahead and take the discount percentage that you think they get and adjust it out of the numbers... you still won't get to 54 cents / mile, so we agree on that.

Specifically regarding Prius maintenance, there is a reason I've been buying them since 2002:

Power Steering
There is no power steering pump. It's electrically assisted. NEVER fails.

Brakes
The Prius almost exclusively uses regenerative braking. The brakes barely wear. I don't think I've even replaced the pads once in 8 years. I had it checked 2 months ago and they told me the pads looked like new.

Transmission
There are no meshing / unmeshing gears in a Prius. Instead there is a constantly engaged planetary gearset. It's not that they never fail but there are so many fewer moving parts that the chances of failure are drastically reduced.


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## Backdash




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## Undermensch

Backdash said:


>


Very constructive input! Obviously people will believe everything you say because you put so much effort into it!


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## osii

well, it's even simpler then that. At 50,000 miles a year, it's an easy $25000 in deductions. That's $20,000 in car depreciation every year and $5,000 for gas. I would need to know what you're driving and what your actual costs are that run that high. Subtract another $1200 for annual insurance. Maybe if you're driving a Bentley?


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## Backdash

Undermensch said:


> Very constructive input! Obviously people will believe everything you say because you put so much effort into it!


I was weakly and ineffectively trying to communicate the illness I'm caused whenever I reflect on my actual net income from this particular independent contractor gig.

I've come to the conclusion that I've said all I can on the topic and a puking emoji best sums up all my thoughts and feelings on the subject.

I'll leave you folks to it.


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## Greguzzi

Enterprise likely has its own maintenance facilities and sells its cars off before they have a bazillion miles. Of course, they know what their costs will be. Unless you operate in exactly that fashion, you don't know what your costs are until you sell or scrap the car.


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## Undermensch

Backdash said:


> I was weakly and ineffectively trying to communicate the illness I'm caused whenever I reflect on my actual net income from this particular independent contractor gig.
> 
> I've come to the conclusion that I've said all I can on the topic and a puking emoji best sums up all my thoughts and feelings on the subject.
> 
> I'll leave you folks to it.


Ok, fair enough. I wish the money was higher too!


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## Undermensch

Greguzzi said:


> Enterprise likely has its own maintenance facilities and sells its cars off before they have a bazillion miles. Of course, they know what their costs will be. Unless you operate in exactly that fashion, you don't know what your costs are until you sell or scrap the car.


Yes, that's possible. I haven't exactly come across any ghost maintenance shops... My bet is that they use local shops but they've got a contract for a reduced rate. Maybe 10-20% less.

But as you said, they also get rid of the cars before they rack up the miles... I doubt they need much maintenance other than oil and tires, which reduces the need for them to even try to save money on maintenance.

They also own the cars during their years of highest depreciation, which makes their cost higher than yours would be if you own an older car.

But they present a nice ceiling to the expenses: 30 cents / mile if you're driving 1,300 miles a week.

Definitely lower than the 54 cents / mile claimed by some, and it's certainly possible to manage your own expenses to be lower than 30 cents / mile with an older reliable model of car.


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## Greguzzi

Well, that's just your opinion. It is not fact, but you are entitled to it, aa I am entitled to disagree.


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## Simon

Undermensch said:


> Almost, but not quite. Two issues with that:
> 
> Cost Per Mile - That's what this thread is about and what the truthers claim is 54 cents / mile for everyone (it's not)
> -30% for taxes - Missing a step
> F - (F - (B - A) * 0.54) * 0.3 = After Tax Profit
> The profit is not all taxable since a good portion of it is shielded by the 54 cents / mile deduction
> 
> Otherwise, correct.


The link will give the driver the true cost per mile lending creedance to your orginal post.

Taxes are a variable and is not constant so I let the driver calculate that after the fact in thier own way. (30% should be saved) or for those of us doing Uber right (part time with a full time job) shouldering the medical and tax responsabilties.

I just shortened what you explained into a simpler formula for drivers to easily get to thier profit numbers, enabling them to better thier strategy.

Your correct about the tax deduction sheild, but it complicates the math. Drivers should only be doing the long math once per year.


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## gazzy

Forgot to mention that NJ rate is $1.65, now do the math for $1.00 or $0.85 where the most of the country is at. 
From my calculations 1300 total miles, 706 pax miles (approx.), 40 hours. 
$706 at $1.00 a mile , minus uber cut 20% (for veteran) or 25% for new drivers. $564 and $529.50 accordingly. 
Now plug in your numbers:
$564-$315-$87.10(gas) = $161.90 
Now divide that by 40 hours invested............ 
Did I miss anything?


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## Undermensch

gazzy said:


> Forgot to mention that NJ rate is $1.65, now do the math for $1.00 or $0.85 where the most of the country is at.
> From my calculations 1300 total miles, 706 pax miles (approx.), 40 hours.
> $706 at $1.00 a mile , minus uber cut 20% (for veteran) or 25% for new drivers. $564 and $529.50 accordingly.
> Now plug in your numbers:
> $564-$315-$87.10(gas) = $161.90
> Now divide that by 40 hours invested............
> Did I miss anything?


NJ Rate is $1.65?!? I wish!

https://www.uber.com/cities/new-jersey/

85 cents/mile EXCEPT the shore region which is $1.65 / mile.

https://www.uber.com/cities/new-jersey-shore/


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## UbieWarrior

Most people are in the 10% tax bracket so 54c mile gross deduction is only 5.4c net.

30miles then is only $1.62.

That is less than the price for gallon of gas.


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## Fireguy50

Undermensch said:


> Well, it was fun, I like to write
> 
> I've got my asbestos jacket on, I'm ready.


Well done you did asbestos you cancer!


Any vehicle costing more than 0.54¢ per mile is needing repairs too often, and should be traded in or replaced.
Or Uber just isn't for you & your vehicle.
Or you drive like an idiot lowering your mileage and requiring tire replacement more frequently.


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## renbutler

My detailed, real-world costs per mile are under 25 cents.

Gas: 8 cents/mile (8/1/15 to 4/30/16)

Maintenance: 9 cents/mile (all maintenance costs since I purchased the vehicle in 2009)

Mileage-based Depreciation: 5 cents/mile (according to Edmunds for my type of vehicle)

Insurance and registration aren't per-mile costs, but they cost about 4 cents/mile combined based on my yearly mileage and rates.

Yep, it's very easy to stay under 54 cents/mile, if you drive the right type of vehicles in the right places.


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## gofry

I can't contest your own figures but I believe that most Uber drivers make less than $10 an hour (after gas but before expenses & taxes), which would skew all of these calculations. Most people would be better served doing something else for a living.


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## Undermensch

gofry said:


> I can't contest your own figures but I believe that most Uber drivers make less than $10 an hour (after gas but before expenses & taxes), which would skew all of these calculations. Most people would be better served doing something else for a living.


How much they make per hour is not something I can dispute.

If you drive to a cornfield and sit there for 8 hours with no rides you will make less than $0/hour.

This post was primarily about the cost per mile to operate a car and how it is not 54 cents / mile.

I only included my earnings per hour from one week as an illustration of how my earnings would be impacted if I rented from Enterprise vs driving my super cheap car.

I agree that if someone is making less than $10/hour they might want to consider other options, if they have any.


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## Disgusted Driver

While I disagree with many of Undermensch 's opinions on here, this thread is about a simple fact. Many people attempt to do an overly simplistic cost analysis by saying it costs .54 a mile to operate your car. I think he has done a good job of disproving that for all but the most ridiculous cases (i.e. driving a Bentley for Uber X). That makes this a fact, not an opinion. With that said, it is still up to you to determine if it is cost effective to drive for Uber and what rate of return is appropriate for you. I'm not satisfied unless i'm netting $15 or more per hour, others are quite happy with $9 or 10 per hour. No one should be happy with $5 but again, that's a personal choice for you to determine and deal with.


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## negeorgia

If you have no income, you have no taxes and Uber is a great way to have no income. Everyone's tolerance of $5/hr is different.


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## Undermensch

negeorgia said:


> If you have no income, you have no taxes and Uber is a great way to have no income. Everyone's tolerance of $5/hr is different.


That's actually an excellent point... people on Social Security can only have a certain amount of income per month before their benefits get reduced. The tax shielding from the standard mileage deduction is great for them. The fact that they can keep it so they barely make money, on a tax basis, is worth several dollars/hour to them on top of what Uber is paying them.


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## DieselkW

You sir, have done a lot of math, and given this a lot of thought, but you have failed to account for miles driven that are not reimbursed by Uber.

On a 1000 mile week, I would be reimbursed for roughly half of those miles, I'm only talking about my market, Indianapolis.

It's a big city in square miles, a small city in population.

My cost per mile includes the acquisition cost of my car, I calculate 35¢ per mile.

Uber reimbursement was 56¢ + 12¢ per minute.
Since I was only reimbursed for the miles with a pax, real world I was only reimbursed 28¢ per mile driven.

In your example, with your 8 year old car, you only include the cost of fuel at 10¢ a mile. 
No tire cost?
No oil cost?
No insurance cost?
No brakes were used in the course of the week?

If you're going to ignore all the costs of driving and call the balance of your take home "profit", without a word of self employment tax involved.... 

You're just not being honest.


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## Undermensch

DieselkW said:


> You sir, have done a lot of math, and given this a lot of thought, but you have failed to account for miles driven that are not reimbursed by Uber.
> 
> On a 1000 mile week, I would be reimbursed for roughly half of those miles, I'm only talking about my market, Indianapolis.
> 
> It's a big city in square miles, a small city in population.
> 
> My cost per mile includes the acquisition cost of my car, I calculate 35¢ per mile.
> 
> Uber reimbursement was 56¢ + 12¢ per minute.
> Since I was only reimbursed for the miles with a pax, real world I was only reimbursed 28¢ per mile driven.
> 
> In your example, with your 8 year old car, you only include the cost of fuel at 10¢ a mile.
> No tire cost?
> No oil cost?
> No insurance cost?
> No brakes were used in the course of the week?
> 
> If you're going to ignore all the costs of driving and call the balance of your take home "profit", without a word of self employment tax involved....
> 
> You're just not being honest.


Umm...

No.

The 1,000 mile week is *total miles driven*. It is not "1,000 miles paid by Uber"... I never said that anywhere.

You're getting distracted by the cost of my car. I covered that in a different post: https://uberpeople.net/threads/2015-q4-and-2016-q1-pay-full-disclosure.66689/

In short, 10 cents / mile is my total cost (gas is 4.6 cents / mile @ 42 MPG and $2/gallon). But that's really besides the point.

The point is that Enterprise sets a ceiling on your cost per mile. If you think your cost is higher than theirs then you either are counting it incorrectly or you're driving the wrong car for Uber and should consider doing the Enterprise deal as it will lower your expenses.

Regarding taxes, I think you're getting confused again... I did mention that if you drive an Enterprise car you will owe more in taxes because you won't get the 54 cents / mile deduction and you will additionally have to add in an extra 7% if comparing the Uber wage / hour to the wage / hour at any other job, due to self employment tax. It's all there, you must have missed it.

In my case though, I'm operating at a tax loss after miles, buying a new iPhone, buying a new stereo, SiriusXM subscription, portion of phone bill, etc. For the year I'll turn a small profit on a tax basis (probably around $1-2k this year on a projected $20k in take home after tolls and gas, not a bad rate at all!).


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## DieselkW

renbutler said:


> My detailed, real-world costs per mile are under 25 cents.
> 
> Gas: 8 cents/mile (8/1/15 to 4/30/16)
> 
> Maintenance: 9 cents/mile (all maintenance costs since I purchased the vehicle in 2009)
> 
> Mileage-based Depreciation: 5 cents/mile (according to Edmunds for my type of vehicle)
> 
> Insurance and registration aren't per-mile costs, but they cost about 4 cents/mile combined based on my yearly mileage and rates.
> 
> Yep, it's very easy to stay under 54 cents/mile, if you drive the right type of vehicles in the right places.


Detailed, real world costs per mile that come to 26¢ per mile. 
What about the maintenance costs for things like tires and brakes, that are yet to be replaced, but used by ride share activity? You don't seem to have accounted for that because they haven't billed you for that yet?

If tires are $200 each and last for 80,000 miles, it's only a penny per mile, but we're driving 1000 miles a week, right? Now you're at 27¢
Brakes last about as long as tires, from my experience. Can we add another penny per mile?

Now, what are your miles with a pax vs. ride share miles without a pax? For me, it's about equal. That means I'm driving 1000 miles but only getting "paid" to drive 500 of them.

That means 28¢ per mile reimbursed from Uber.


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## Undermensch

DieselkW said:


> Detailed, real world costs per mile that come to 26¢ per mile.
> What about the maintenance costs for things like tires and brakes, that are yet to be replaced, but used by ride share activity? You don't seem to have accounted for that because they haven't billed you for that yet?
> 
> If tires are $200 each and last for 80,000 miles, it's only a penny per mile, but we're driving 1000 miles a week, right? Now you're at 27¢
> Brakes last about as long as tires, from my experience. Can we add another penny per mile?
> 
> Now, what are your miles with a pax vs. ride share miles without a pax? For me, it's about equal. That means I'm driving 1000 miles but only getting "paid" to drive 500 of them.
> 
> That means 28¢ per mile reimbursed from Uber.


If there is anything I have provided, it is detail... you might not have looked at the spreadsheet or you might have missed the tabs where I calculate all of that in excruciating detail.

I've included the pictures below. Yes, I do account for tires, oil, and shocks.

I have no idea where you pulled this 26 cents / mile number from. You can see in the original post in this message that Enterprise is charging you that and still making money in the process. 26 cents / mile isn't the cost to operate an efficient, reliable, and older car. Not all cars are efficient or reliable though, you do have to choose wisely, and you can't buy a 2015 car and expect to make money.


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## DieselkW

The twenty six cents per mile was from renbutler 's post, the one I quoted. He said he calculated 26¢/mile. You threw a "like" on that post, but maybe you didn't read it all.

You're not putting all the costs of ride sharing a car into your calculation.

I agree with you, wholeheartedly, that 56¢ from IRS/AAA is ridiculously high.

I also get 40mpg, diesel, which currently costs less than unleaded regular.

The break for me was when I realized I was driving to a pickup, and from a drop off, approximately the same miles as I had with a pax.

That HALVES the per mile compensation from Uber, which was 56¢ a mile at 20% veteran commission. At an effective compensation of 28¢ per mile, I quit driving.


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## rtaatl

Who cares if your expense is more or less than .54 cents a mile. If your profit margin is say .50 cents you're still going to be driving a ton of miles with no down time just to make a decent living....hence the term UberSlaves.


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## gazzy

So something doesn't add up here, now at $.85 a mile, you drove 1300 miles, your take home should be around $884 after uber fees ( 20%) 
That would assume that you had zero dead miles and all of those 1300 miles were pax miles, which is technically impossible.


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## DieselkW

It's a little harder to calculate gazzy , but the per minute rate adds up.
My car computer gives me an average mph - it's reliably around 29 in mixed city/hwy driving. If it was 30, that would be a mile every two minutes.

Let's do 1000 miles a week, for big round numbers to bounce.
What's the dead miles per week? Mine were high, but my city is big in sq. miles, but small in population. Let's call the dead miles 25%, or 250.

Uber pays at your number, 85¢/mile minus 20% to veterans. The per minute rate is ... 20¢??

So the driver in this fictitious city drives with a pax 750 miles at an average 30 mph. (1 mile/2 minutes)

(750 * .85) + (750 * .2 * 2mins/mile) = 637.5 + 300 = $937.50 gross pay plus some base fare money and maybe some tips .... call it $1000

After paying Uber 20%, now we are at $800 pay for 1000 miles.

At 30mph, it took 2000 minutes to drive 1000 miles. 33 hours driving, that's gotta be over 50 hours with the app active.

1000 miles a week is 50,000 miles per year on your car, not including personal miles. That's a set of tires per year, a brake job per year, 7 oil changes...

Before taxes, before costs, 80¢ a mile. Take out whatever you think it is that it costs to drive your car, ten cents or thirty cents per mile. If we split the difference between Undermensch at 10¢ and renbutler at 26¢, call it at 18¢ per mile, Uber drivers are getting a net profit of 62¢ per mile.

Back to 1000 miles at 62¢, for 50 hours, you're selling the future equity of your car for $12/hour

Don't spend it all in one place.


----------



## Undermensch

DieselkW said:


> It's a little harder to calculate gazzy , but the per minute rate adds up.
> My car computer gives me an average mph - it's reliably around 29 in mixed city/hwy driving. If it was 30, that would be a mile every two minutes.
> 
> Let's do 1000 miles a week, for big round numbers to bounce.
> What's the dead miles per week? Mine were high, but my city is big in sq. miles, but small in population. Let's call the dead miles 25%, or 250.
> 
> Uber pays at your number, 85¢/mile minus 20% to veterans. The per minute rate is ... 20¢??
> 
> So the driver in this fictitious city drives with a pax 750 miles at an average 30 mph. (1 mile/2 minutes)
> 
> (750 * .85) + (750 * .2 * 2mins/mile) = 637.5 + 300 = $937.50 gross pay plus some base fare money and maybe some tips .... call it $1000
> 
> After paying Uber 20%, now we are at $800 pay for 1000 miles.
> 
> At 30mph, it took 2000 minutes to drive 1000 miles. 33 hours driving, that's gotta be over 50 hours with the app active.
> 
> 1000 miles a week is 50,000 miles per year on your car, not including personal miles. That's a set of tires per year, a brake job per year, 7 oil changes...
> 
> Before taxes, before costs, 80¢ a mile. Take out whatever you think it is that it costs to drive your car, ten cents or thirty cents per mile. If we split the difference between Undermensch at 10¢ and renbutler at 26¢, call it at 18¢ per mile, Uber drivers are getting a net profit of 62¢ per mile.
> 
> Back to 1000 miles at 62¢, for 50 hours, you're selling the future equity of your car for $12/hour
> 
> Don't spend it all in one place.


This post is not about profit rates!

It's about cost to operate your car.

I don't drive in an 85 cent zone, I drive in a mixed 85 cent and 1.60 zone.

I'm not talking in this post about whether driving at 85 cents / mile is a good idea or not. Couldn't care less about that, in this particular post. It's ONLY about the cost to operate the car and that the Enterprise rental sets a ceiling on that, which you can do better than by driving older, more reliable, more efficient cars. Profitability and rates is for another thread.


----------



## Simon

Anyone who has a cpm of $.54 is doing uberx wrong


----------



## DieselkW

Undermensch said:


> This post is not about profit rates!
> 
> It's about cost to operate your car.
> 
> I don't drive in an 85 cent zone, I drive in a mixed 85 cent and 1.60 zone.
> 
> I'm not talking in this post about whether driving at 85 cents / mile is a good idea or not. Couldn't care less about that, in this particular post. It's ONLY about the cost to operate the car and that the Enterprise rental sets a ceiling on that, which you can do better than by driving older, more reliable, more efficient cars. Profitability and rates is for another thread.


Oh, I see, you think you can control the thread topic. No problem. Good luck herding these cats.


----------



## Realityshark

Each car is different. Everyone's situation is different. Do your own math. If you are living in your car and eating out of dumpsters, uber driving might seem great.

If your a heroin addict looking for your next fix, uber driving and daily pay is a means to an end.

If you have a new 40k car and have the intelligence and ability to make lots of money, uber driving is a joke.


----------



## tohunt4me

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


They also get fleet discount on purchase of cars.
They sell cars 1-3 years of age,usually with 50,000 or less miles.

My next Uber car will be purchased from Hertz car sales.

I can get a 2016 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid (40 mpg city) with 19,000 miles for $17,500.

$10,000 discount off new price.
They will finance with $3,000 down at 3.5% interest.


----------



## Undermensch

DieselkW said:


> Oh, I see, you think you can control the thread topic. No problem. Good luck herding these cats.


Ha, no, not really. I did create the thread and set the topic... But I'm just saying I'm not going to get too off topic in my responses. You are free to continue talking about profit margins all you want.


----------



## Undermensch

rtaatl said:


> Who cares if your expense is more or less than .54 cents a mile. If your profit margin is say .50 cents you're still going to be driving a ton of miles with no down time just to make a decent living....hence the term UberSlaves.


Who cares what your expenses are but let's then whine about profit margin???

You know what profit margin is right? It's profit divided by revenue. Profit is revenue minus expenses.

You cannot know, and thus cannot whine about, your profit margin without understanding, accurately, what your expenses are. It is important to know and control your expenses.


----------



## renbutler

DieselkW said:


> Detailed, real world costs per mile that come to 26¢ per mile.
> What about the maintenance costs for things like tires and brakes, that are yet to be replaced, but used by ride share activity? You don't seem to have accounted for that because they haven't billed you for that yet?


What? I clearly said:

"Maintenance: 9 cents/mile (all maintenance costs since I purchased the vehicle in 2009)"

That's ALL MAINTENANCE COSTS, including tires, brakes, repairs, oil changes, etc.

And that's over nearly 70,000 of driving I've performed since I bought the vehicle in 2009, so the cost estimate per mile is not some hopeful number that's going to be blown wide open the first time I get new tires or brakes.

I do round up a little bit in my estimates because the vehicle is older now, so in theory it should require a bit more frequent maintenance, but not necessarily more frequent tires or brakes.

It's okay, sometimes I miss things in others' posts too.


----------



## 20yearsdriving

Undermensch said:


> Well, it was fun, I like to write
> 
> I've got my asbestos jacket on, I'm ready.


The homeless pan handler thinks we are all crazy for having jobs & homes 
He may just talk you in to joining him Undermensch you are half way there


----------



## Undermensch

20yearsdriving said:


> The homeless pan handler thinks we are all crazy for having jobs & homes
> He may just talk you in to joining him Undermensch you are half way there


Not really on topic regarding the cost of an Enterprise rental, but thanks for your contribution?


----------



## Huberis

Undermensch said:


> Yes, that's possible. I haven't exactly come across any ghost maintenance shops... My bet is that they use local shops but they've got a contract for a reduced rate. Maybe 10-20% less.
> 
> But as you said, they also get rid of the cars before they rack up the miles... I doubt they need much maintenance other than oil and tires, which reduces the need for them to even try to save money on maintenance.
> 
> They also own the cars during their years of highest depreciation, which makes their cost higher than yours would be if you own an older car.
> 
> But they present a nice ceiling to the expenses: 30 cents / mile if you're driving 1,300 miles a week.
> 
> Definitely lower than the 54 cents / mile claimed by some, and it's certainly possible to manage your own expenses to be lower than 30 cents / mile with an older reliable model of car.


The rental companies have a formula. Are they paying the actual sticker price for their fleet cars to begin with? I doubt it. They keep the car for a year or two because customers demand new cars and they don't want to be pumping money into the cars to keep them on the road, so they sell them early on. The taxi company I drive for has bought many ex rental cars. They definately needed work by the time we got them, so I don't think it is reasonable to assume they only ever needed tires, oil etc.

Your figures, and I admit, I haven't read every bit of this thread....... They suggest a bare minimum of 30 cent/mile.... maybe a bit better if you are smart. Your numbers also suggest that is at best only temporary. The federal deduct seems to take into account not everyone is driving a brand new car. Over time, if you do the work for a while, a driver is going to have periods where the costs per mile increase. They put money into the car, and maybe things stabilize for a while.

If an Uber driver is working a market with unsustainable rates, that nice, newish reliable car is likely the first and last of its kind they will ever comfortably own to drive for Uber.


----------



## Undermensch

Huberis said:


> The rental companies have a formula. Are they paying the actual sticker price for their fleet cars to begin with? I doubt it. They keep the car for a year or two because customers demand new cars and they don't want to be pumping money into the cars to keep them on the road, so they sell them early on. The taxi company I drive for has bought many ex rental cars. They definately needed work by the time we got them, so I don't think it is reasonable to assume they only ever needed tires, oil etc.
> 
> Your figures, and I admit, I haven't read every bit of this thread....... They suggest a bare minimum of 30 cent/mile.... maybe a bit better if you are smart. Your numbers also suggest that is at best only temporary. The federal deduct seems to take into account not everyone is driving a brand new car. Over time, if you do the work for a while, a driver is going to have periods where the costs per mile increase. They put money into the car, and maybe things stabilize for a while.
> 
> If an Uber driver is working a market with unsustainable rates, that nice, newish reliable car is likely the first and last of its kind they will ever comfortably own to drive for Uber.


The whole point of this post is that the cost is not 54 cents / mile. It seems you agree with that, right?


----------



## Huberis

Undermensch said:


> The whole point of this post is that the cost is not 54 cents / mile. It seems you agree with that, right?


It doesn't have to be no. That should be obvious. However, given time, they could be more. For a driver owner, the cost per mile is relative to the charge per mile.


----------



## 20yearsdriving




----------



## 20yearsdriving

The mini likes to penny pinch


----------



## rtaatl

Undermensch said:


> Who cares what your expenses are but let's then whine about profit margin???
> 
> You know what profit margin is right? It's profit divided by revenue. Profit is revenue minus expenses.
> 
> You cannot know, and thus cannot whine about, your profit margin without understanding, accurately, what your expenses are. It is important to know and control your expenses.


Really?!?!?! Running my own car service you might say I'm somewhat familiar with profit margin, ok. Yet these X drivers have no chance since the ceiling has been pretty much set by .75 or whatever crazy low fare per mile. So there's no way to turn a decent profit even if your expenses per mile were zero. Kind of like the Suzy Orman followers who for some reason actually believe they can save themselves rich...lol!


----------



## 20yearsdriving

rtaatl said:


> Really?!?!?! Running my own car service you might say I'm somewhat familiar with profit margin, ok. Yet these X drivers have no chance since the ceiling has been pretty much set by .75 or whatever crazy low fare per mile. So there's no way to turn a decent profit even if your expenses per mile were zero. Kind of like the Suzy Orman followers who for some reason actually believe they can save themselves rich...lol!


Correct You are talking profits on a open market

This tread teaches how to bake lasagna with: gum , rubber band , matches , salt & peper


----------



## rtaatl

20yearsdriving said:


> Correct You are talking profits on a open market
> 
> This tread teaches how to bake lasagna with: gum , rubber band , matches , salt & peper


Uber profit margins are so great they have the 100 hour a week driving challenge and hand out sleep in your car kits...lol! It's sad that people actually think that's cool.


----------



## 20yearsdriving

rtaatl said:


> Uber profit margins are so great they have the 100 hour a week driving challenge and hand out sleep in your car kits...lol! It's sad that people actually think that's cool.


Disclaimer contains strong language :


----------



## Undermensch

rtaatl said:


> Really?!?!?! Running my own car service you might say I'm somewhat familiar with profit margin, ok. Yet these X drivers have no chance since the ceiling has been pretty much set by .75 or whatever crazy low fare per mile. So there's no way to turn a decent profit even if your expenses per mile were zero. Kind of like the Suzy Orman followers who for some reason actually believe they can save themselves rich...lol!


What does any of what you wrote have to do with expense calculations?


----------



## renbutler

rtaatl said:


> Kind of like the Suzy Orman followers who for some reason actually believe they can save themselves rich...lol!


That's weird. People do it all the time. If by "save" you mean not spend all their money and invest their excess into mutual funds for decades.

That's as close to a sure thing as one can get.


----------



## Realityshark

renbutler said:


> That's weird. People do it all the time. If by "save" you mean not spend all their money and invest their excess into mutual


I remember you. You're the guy who got fired (laid off) from his job a year ago and told everyone he was just uberin' until he found a new job.

Here it is a year later.........


----------



## renbutler

Realityshark said:


> I remember you. You're the guy who got fired (laid off) from his job a year ago and told everyone he was just uberin' until he found a new job.
> 
> Here it is a year later.........


I remember you. You were they guy who tried to mock me for getting laid off, and in the process revealed yourself to be utterly classless.

BTW, for those who actually care about others, I started working full-time again at a good-paying job last October (right when my severance stopped coming in -- nice timing, huh?).

I thought I would give up Uber when I started full-time again, but I still drive in my free time when I can get 2.0x surges or better. Just a couple rides a week. A perfect job for extra cash, for those with a little business sense and the smarts to keep expenses low.


----------



## Stygge

Simon said:


> Artofbeingcheap.com/calculator
> 
> Mileage start = A
> Mileage finish = B
> Cost per mile = C
> Total Fares = D
> Uber fee = E
> Vehicle Cost(B-AxC) = F
> 
> B-AxC=F
> D-E-F= profit
> 
> -30%(avg) for Fed taxes, State taxes, social sec, medicaid.
> 
> Think im good on that. Post your solutions.


You need to retake elementary school math to get that right dude.


----------



## Simon

Stygge said:


> You need to retake elementary school math to get that right dude.


My formatting may be off but the calculations are sound.


----------



## Wil_Iam_Fuber'd

$.10 cents per mile. Where did you study business lad?


----------



## Stygge

Simon said:


> My formatting may be off but the calculations are sound.


Yup. You'll learn that in elementary school.


----------



## cleansafepolite

maintanence costs? tires?.....oil, timing belt...wipers....um also are you cleaning your car daily...lol...cute how using a rental in your example has non of these listed...how conveinient. sooo cold in here....definately shilly. so shilly....im mean chili. shill.....chili? mmmm great with mole....i mean guaqamole...


----------



## itsablackmarket

osii said:


> well, it's even simpler then that. At 50,000 miles a year, it's an easy $25000 in deductions. That's $20,000 in car depreciation every year and $5,000 for gas. I would need to know what you're driving and what your actual costs are that run that high. Subtract another $1200 for annual insurance. Maybe if you're driving a Bentley?


Can't deduct what you don't make. If you're Ubering the way Uber wants you to, in 50,000 miles you'll only generate $20,000 tops. Take $5000 out of that for gas, $500 for tires, then a few thousand for other maintenance items unless you wish to neglect your vehicle and have it be totally worthless by 100k. What do you have? $12,000 something? Great, now factor in insurance costs. It's simple. The risk is extremely high and the reward is laughable.


----------



## DieselkW

renbutler said:


> It's okay, sometimes I miss things in others' posts too.





renbutler said:


> My detailed, real-world costs per mile are under 25 cents.
> 
> Gas: 8 cents/mile (8/1/15 to 4/30/16)
> 
> Maintenance: 9 cents/mile (all maintenance costs since I purchased the vehicle in 2009)
> 
> Mileage-based Depreciation: 5 cents/mile (according to Edmunds for my type of vehicle)
> 
> Insurance and registration aren't per-mile costs, but they cost about 4 cents/mile combined based on my yearly mileage and rates.
> 
> Yep, it's very easy to stay under 54 cents/mile, if you drive the right type of vehicles in the right places.


8 cents + 9 cents + 5 cents + 4 cents = 26¢ what is unclear about your own post. I can understand missing things in others' posts, but in your own?


----------



## renbutler

DieselkW said:


> 8 cents + 9 cents + 5 cents + 4 cents = 26¢ what is unclear about your own post. I can understand missing things in others' posts, but in your own?


I said that I don't count insurance and registration as per-mile costs because, well, they aren't per-mile costs.

I mentioned them only because some people insist on including them. They are an expense, but for me they're not an UBER expense, as I would pay them anyway if I didn't drive Uber. So they aren't part of my "under 25" calculation.

Glad I could clear that up for you.


----------



## DieselkW

renbutler It's not clear, but maybe I'm just being obtuse. Everything can be distilled down to a per mile cost, and if you're driving passengers without insurance, part time or not, your insurance company is going to give you a big ol' middle finger if you ask them to help you pay for any damages done while you were engaged in using your car for business purposes. You may get the pax to understand and just get the hell out of there so you don't have to admit to being "for hire" at the time of the accident, but if the pax is hurt, you are screwed.

Unless, of course, you pay the extra premium price for ride share insurance. In which case, it is not one of those "paying for it anyway" costs. Of course, now that you're part time, it's as crazy to pay that additional premium as it is to drive without it.

Either way, you can still calculate your ride share miles as a percentage of your total miles and include it in the cost of operating your car. You can wash out insurance and registration costs altogether, but that's just "prettying up your numbers". So, whether it's 21¢ or 28¢ - your Uber compensation is pretty thin profit - especially if, like me, your dead miles are 50% of your total. I run to the airport for $40, but can't get a ride out of the airport because there's 7 other drivers ahead of me in that stupid lot. So, head downtown for a free 18 miles to pick up a couple of minimum fares... then GAWD FORBID you pick up someone that wants to go to Avon so you're stuck way out there.

We came up with similar numbers, by the way. My cost, including everything, is 35¢ a mile. 
I stopped driving in January at the last pay cut, as compensation dropped to 30¢ a mile for me. (Including dead miles directly impacted by ride share)

Glad you got a real job. I'm two years unemployed now... got a nibble in Seattle...


----------



## Stygge

itsablackmarket said:


> in 50,000 miles you'll only generate $20,000 tops.


You're a very inefficient driver. It's easy to double that revenue.



itsablackmarket said:


> $500 for tires, then a few thousand for other maintenance items


You should learn how to drive smoother and get a quality car.


----------



## SEAL Team 5

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


You really drive Uber for 1300 miles a week in NJ? Do you sh**, shower and shave in your vehicle? How many hours does it take you to drive 1300 miles for Uber in NJ? I live in perhaps the most spread out metropolitan area in the country with the highest speed limits. Most of our surface streets are 45 mph and our freeways are 65 mph, and that's in city limits. For me to do 1000 miles a week it's 60 hours behind the wheel. I'm guessing you're behind the wheel at least 100 hours. I know Jersey is slow and the roads are horrible.


----------



## Millio007

SEAL Team 5 said:


> You really drive Uber for 1300 miles a week in NJ? Do you sh**, shower and shave in your vehicle? How many hours does it take you to drive 1300 miles for Uber in NJ? I live in perhaps the most spread out metropolitan area in the country with the highest speed limits. Most of our surface streets are 45 mph and our freeways are 65 mph, and that's in city limits. For me to do 1000 miles a week it's 60 hours behind the wheel. I'm guessing you're behind the wheel at least 100 hours. I know Jersey is slow and the roads are horrible.


1300/6days = 216 miles....... looking over a spreadsheet in NJ market I personally done that in 7.5 hrs 200 miles in that day ..135 mi in 4 hrs. The roads are better paved then NYC


----------



## SEAL Team 5

Undermensch said:


> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.


I just re read your post. You say 40 hours for 1300 miles? I say BS. I can see you pushing the pax out the door at 32.5 mph, but I just can't see the pax running fast enough to jump in your vehicle. Hussein Bolt, the fastest man in the world is clocked around 25 mph. Please don't post BS numbers, some idiots might actually believe you.


----------



## SEAL Team 5

Millio007 said:


> 1300/6days = 216 miles....... looking over a spreadsheet in NJ market I personally done that in 7.5 hrs 200 miles in that day ..135 mi in 4 hrs. The roads are better paved then NYC


135 miles of Uber driving in 4 hours. That's almost 35 mph non stop. Do you always get 1 pax going very long distance? Do you run red lights? I think your FOS. Your #'s don't even come close to adding up. NJ roads suck, your freeways suck. My mom's from Passaic.


----------



## Millio007

SEAL Team 5 said:


> 135 miles of Uber driving in 4 hours. That's almost 35 mph non stop. Do you always get 1 pax going very long distance? Do you run red lights? I think your FOS. Your #'s don't even come close to adding up. NJ roads suck, your freeways suck. My mom's from Passaic.


Very Doable numbers stop having your head in your ass in a market you don't drive! Now Passaic streets is a different story this is mostly numbers from EWR at NYC rates


----------



## BurgerTiime

So you need a new car in year to drive because your current one will no longer be valid. Also you never added true depreciation which makes your car worthless due to running it as a taxi with all those miles. Most vehicles have some value left but yours will be worth dirt.
Did you factor in insurance fees to cover you during period 1? Car washes, parking to pay spots while you stage to avoid tickets and get lunch? Actual tickets and court time. Down time and fuel running back accountable for dead miles? Waited miles and fuel for no shows and wrong located pings?
Your math is very off and I wish there was a thumbs down for your madness and this being featured.
Uber has over saturated the markets and you can't account for days where the streets are flooded and you're wasting time/gas. This is why tips are crucial to earning a living. Ask any waitress or bellman.
You are not making money!
Show this graph to the thousands of drivers filing bankruptcy. Tell it to the judge.


----------



## Millio007

Someone took me to EWR lets say 15 miles to start my day 30-40 mins
EWR To HOWELL NJ going down Garden State PWKY where I Didn't see or hit a single Pothole on this Road 57 miles 62 mins
HOWELL back to EWR Dead HEAD same amount time give or take thats (2.5-3 HRS *120 miles )*already rinse and repeat for 5 more hours during the day/shift thats over 200 miles easy so who is FOS with the numbers and screenshots to back it up


----------



## 60000_TaxiFares

Undermensch said:


> Well, it was fun, *I like to write*
> 
> I've got my asbestos jacket on, I'm ready.


Ahh.. the old *aspiring writer / part time driver thing*.... your essay reminds me of .... well if I knew any writers that would be it.

Now for this questioning the IRS with these statistics..... if they say it's 54c/mi it IS 54c a mile....

Anybody realistically looking at this (simple) situation of $10,000-$20,000 Uber X cars will see that the average Uber X car cost about *30c/mi *(+/-) to operate. (sans most insurance, financing costs -- one pays those wherever they work) The average car costs about *40c/mi* with ins and financing included. This has been calculated too many times to count on this site and others. Not really Stephen Hawking stuff...

That *54c/mi* number is *an all encompassing number* ranging from a *4 door 08 Mazda3* to a *50,000+ Cadillac Escalade* or larger commercial vehicle carrying $4000-$8000 in *commercial insurance*.( some perhaps well over the 54c/mi allowance and itemizing on taxes)

The average Uber X driver gets a little "gift" from the IRS in this case. They're at the low end of the range.

There are numerous *news articles* and "*Uber Truth*" videos on the internet that use the *54c/mi* figure. Actually its *probably for the better* , 30c/mi is still a lot and many drivers may only calculate gas. Take a $*10,000 accident *with a *$17,000 car* and the Carfax report alone probably costs the owner $4000+ in depreciation. (damn computers) That would be a 54c/mi+ (bad) year.



> *The 54 cents / mile truthers do a disservice to other drivers* and potential drivers. I don't mind if other drivers make money. In fact, I hope enough new drivers join to push the truthers out


"Truthers" are doing *no disservice* to *anyone* turning folks away from these "Timeshare" operations. Not denying anyone a "fantastic opportunity". No sightings of Travis K. with Richard Cheney hauling explosives near the Trade center on Sept 11, 2001....yet.

There are still *too many reasons* to count to *stay away *from these "Timeshare" companies .... *30c/mi* or *54c* operating cost *doesn't change the scenery all that much.*

The moderator grams777 did an excellent analysis of many cities after the rate cuts in January , their effect and before and after driver net earnings at base rates...
https://uberpeople.net/threads/good...ce-for-noobs-to-boobs-good.55290/#post-747235

Stay Safe

CC


----------



## SEAL Team 5

Millio007 said:


> Very Doable numbers stop having your head in your ass in a market you don't drive! Now Passaic streets is a different story this is mostly numbers from EWR at NYC rates


Don't really know what your trip odometer means, but you check engine light, tire pressure indicator and tire service warning lights are on in almost every shot.


----------



## SEAL Team 5

Millio007 said:


> Someone took me to EWR lets say 15 miles to start my day 30-40 mins
> EWR To HOWELL NJ going down Garden State PWKY where I Didn't see or hit a single Pothole on this Road 57 miles 62 mins
> HOWELL back to EWR Dead HEAD same amount time give or take thats (2.5-3 HRS *120 miles )*already rinse and repeat for 5 more hours during the day/shift thats over 200 miles easy so who is FOS with the numbers and screenshots to back it up


Easy to screenshot individual trips, screenshot a week that has 1300 miles and 40 hours on line. Crap, I can get a group from The JW Marriott to the airport in 22 mins and its 27 miles away. It's all freeway. Not talking about individual trips, talking about a full 40 hours on line.


----------



## 60000_TaxiFares

BurgerTiime said:


> So you need a new car in year to drive because your current one will no longer be valid. Also you never added true depreciation which makes your car worthless due to running it as a taxi with all those miles. Most vehicles have some value left but yours will be worth dirt.
> Did you factor in insurance fees to cover you during period 1? Car washes, parking to pay spots while you stage to avoid tickets and get lunch? Actual tickets and court time. Down time and fuel running back accountable for dead miles? Waited miles and fuel for no shows and wrong located pings?
> Your math is very off and I wish there was a thumbs down for your madness and this being featured.
> Uber has over saturated the markets and you can't account for days where the streets are flooded and you're wasting time/gas. This is why tips are crucial to earning a living. Ask any waitress or bellman.
> You are not making money!
> Show this graph to the thousands of drivers filing bankruptcy. Tell it to the judge.


About half of this seems applicable to me. But for sure the 30c/mi (+/-) figure for the average Uber X driver is solid, if not a bit optimistic.

Many Uber drivers *are desperate* (obviously) and trying to _avoid bankruptcy_ *by* driving, not necessarily *because* of driving. Desperate enough to continue even at *65c mi/15 min* rates. However with slim margins, one good accident and a $1000 deductible a driver can't pay, may put him off the road and hardship perhaps at the regular job, thus *accelerating the slide* instead of slowing it.

The *average* Uber driver in all but 2 or 3 of Uber's 200 locales is at about *80c/mi, 15c/min* base rates. For the *average* driver, this is about a $6.oo/hr (including tips) proposition all day long. If working only weekend nights perhaps in the $9.00/hr range, once again at base rates.

The average Uber driver probably needs at least 30-40% *surge bonus* added to his account every week to even get into the *$13/hr range*. However the *consistency and "workability"* of surges vary greatly in different areas of the 200 markets Uber is operating in. So the "well above average" driver may make 30% more than average when including surge. Should the *district manager* hit the _enter key_ and experiment with a new algorithm in formerly "exploitable areas" the "well above average drivers" may sink quickly to "average or below". Such goes the dependence on surge.

$13/hr *wasn't super great money* driving a Taxi with no benefits years ago when *Bill Clinton was running for a second term*. Obviously now $13/hr (or a bit more) ,bringing a *$17,000 vehicle to the table* is ...well.... _its not good_.

If it is good to you, one can see how things have deteriorated over the years. (old timers, explain to the youngsters when (or what) Bill Clinton was)

Stay Safe

CC


----------



## Millio007

SEAL Team 5 said:


> Easy to screenshot individual trips, screenshot a week that has 1300 miles and 40 hours on line. Crap, I can get a group from The JW Marriott to the airport in 22 mins and its 27 miles away. It's all freeway. Not talking about individual trips, talking about a full 40 hours on line.


WOW this is not even my post and I can defend doing 1000+ miles in 40 hrs in NJ

GENIUS how are you going to screen shot 1300 miles while on UBER when they don't provide that in statement unless you take ODO or 3rd party IN-APP DATA. ALL uber provides in statement is PAID MILES. LYFT is a diff story.

Example again working EWR 8hrs 5 paid trips at a modest avg of 20mi back and Dead-heading back 40+40+40+40+40 = 8hrs/200miles * 5 1000 miles easy

Now go back to scratching your head Like I said and posted before I have done 200 or close in less then 8hrs in NJ.

As for Screen shots with TPMS/Tire service and Engine Lights I could care less when its just a BS sensor going OFF.

OP please provide your 1300mi in 40+hrs


----------



## Oscar Levant

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


Let's say you drive for Uber for two years, and during that time you put on 100,000 miles, of which 80,000 is for Uber.

You would have driven 20K miles without Uber, and your car would be worth, value: Xa with those miles.
After driving your uber your car is worth much less, owing to mileage accrued, value at Xb with the extra miles.

Subtract Xa from Xb, and add accellerated maintenance, and that must be deducted from your expenses with the others, as well.

Did you do this?


----------



## GILD

accelerated depreciation is REAL COST with uber. Not a made up thing.
the OP leaves out gas is not 2.00 but 2.50
1300 miles a week is almost 200 miles a day. 7 days a week.
200 miles at standard rates in the 80 cent a mile range is only $160 GROSS minus fees, your at $120 minus gas, your at $100.
How the lie are you doing 1300 miles a week and bringing home more than $700 MAX.
200 miles at 30 miles an hour would take 7 hours of straight driving with a pax in the car and never slowing down, in NJ? NOT.
Op is picking up a pax at 7am and driving him for 7 hours on a continuous ping. for 7 days straight? NO he is not.
Op is only working 40 hrs? That is a lie, uber drivers that work full time HAVE to work 60+ hrs to make $500 a week.
Your profit on your $2.50 fare is getting you $1400 a week? LMAO, no it is not.

Op says:
I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.

40 hours? 260 miles a day, 5 days a week? LOL yep thats a lie.
at 30 miles an hour in NJ, good luck going that fast. You would need 8.3 hours with PAX in car! um do you not have to drive to pick them up? of course you do. Do you not have to wait for them? of course you do? You did not drive 250 miles a day in 8 hours. Lets be honest. And you did not make $186 a day as you would have about half those mile in NOT having a PAX in your car. leaving only 125 billable miles. IF your rate is 80/20 you would get GROSS fare of $125 minus uber fee of 25% and minus gas, youd be at a solid $80 for the day. That is the real number for your driving and 5 days a week would net you $400 Not your fictional $932.
If I didnt know better you seem to be UBER corp telling drivers they can make money. GAS is $2.50 by the way, not $2. Your off by 25% on that alone.
your putting 5200 miles on your car a month. 2 oil changes you forgot to add in.
over 60,000 miles a year! WTF. really. You will devalue your car to nil in 2 years.
2 sets of tires a year and a set of brakes. $1500 a year EASY with your driving.
AND you took a car worth $20k and in two years made it worth NOTHING much at all.
This is a sham, 54 cents a mile is real costs. And no matter what uber wants you to think you are certainly devaluing your car at about that rate. uncle sam is NO fool, but uber is counting on its drivers to be fools.


----------



## Taxi Driver in Arizona

Lotta numbers and such in this thread.

Math is hard.


----------



## William1964

I agree with your statement if you're only making 56.5 cents per mile you've got a gas guzzler that requires a lot of repairs and maintenance and cleaning. Then there's that 47% who insist on trolling and lying and making up stories to expressed their disappointment with their job or life

Yeah my Chevy Cruze the 2014 last year cost $0.36 a mile based on my tax information. That includes the $9,000 I got when I sold it back to the dealership.

All my oil changes for free the services for free the maintenance free. Once the warranty ran out I spent 384 box on a 45000 mile inspection

The numbers are close to $9,500 inexpensive 25000 miles

I don't keep track of cost per mile. I keep track of income per $1 spent on gas only. My oil changes maintenance are still free. I don't include the car washes $2 in windshield washer stuff.

I posted this somewhere else I just have a opiate stomach ache from these painkillers thanks to a little surgery and didn't feel like going to look for it.

I updated my numbers and checked my math for this year I make

$8.56 per $1 spent driving Uber

$20.76 per $1 spent delivering Chicken and Waffles.

The discrepancy is in the dead miles. Running back to the restaurant after delivery 2 to 3 miles Max. Running back to my house after driving Uber varies anywhere from 5 miles 250 miles.

I've been getting a lot of 23 minute trips away for pickup 10 miles from my house so there's another 10 dead miles just to get $2.40.

Fortunately the phone's been beeping regularly once I'm on the road and there are very very few dead miles between pickups but the next pick up maybe four and a half miles away when the phone rings.

Sometimes I feel like someone's dispatching me dead miles on purpose. It's just the direction the train starts off train of thought

The reason the train starts off in that direction. I live in the city of Chicago. 15000 25000 drivers or more. I get a pick up that's 10 miles away. How can I be the closest person when I'm 10 miles out


Uber's not a quick-fix game for anyone but the investors


----------



## SEAL Team 5

Taxi Driver in Arizona said:


> Lotta numbers and such in this thread.
> 
> Math is hard.


I will make it really easy. The numbers posted are from one of my top drivers for the year 2015. Granted it's a '14 Denali. All driving performed in AZ.

Total miles 58,346

Fuel $7674
Insurance $5324
Maint. $4098
Reg. $ 384
Total $17,480

Operational cost of $.30 a mile

No factor for cost of vehicle or depreciation.
* in 2013 this drivers fuel cost was $10,977


----------



## Fuzzyelvis

Undermensch said:


> The overall point of this is to prove that expenses are not 54 cents / mile... not to argue about what my specific expenses are.
> 
> Regarding Enterprise - What sort of discount do you think they are getting? It's not more than 10-15%, max. But remember they are buying new, they are not buying used cars like UberX drivers should be driving. You should not be in a 2015 vehicle for UberX. But, go ahead and take the discount percentage that you think they get and adjust it out of the numbers... you still won't get to 54 cents / mile, so we agree on that.
> 
> Specifically regarding Prius maintenance, there is a reason I've been buying them since 2002:
> 
> Power Steering
> There is no power steering pump. It's electrically assisted. NEVER fails.
> 
> Brakes
> The Prius almost exclusively uses regenerative braking. The brakes barely wear. I don't think I've even replaced the pads once in 8 years. I had it checked 2 months ago and they told me the pads looked like new.
> 
> Transmission
> There are no meshing / unmeshing gears in a Prius. Instead there is a constantly engaged planetary gearset. It's not that they never fail but there are so many fewer moving parts that the chances of failure are drastically reduced.


I guess you're lucky you live somewhere with perfect roads, too? Because there are plenty of other parts that fall apart besides those you mentioned. Besides suspension, little things wear out.

For instance I once had a door handle break off in my hand (van used for newspapers--door was opened and closed so many times the metal fatigued).

Motors on windows go. Things just get LOOSE after a certain amount of miles. 50,000 Uber miles are not going to be the same as 50,000 drive to work, pick up the kids and shopping miles.

I don't necessarily disagree that 54 cents is not the true cost. Mine is less and I actually have a fairly new car (not bought for Uber!) But I think 10 cents is unrealistic for any vehicle in the long term.

Your accident risk is also much higher. Quantifying that is difficult, but it can't be ignored. What will your vehicle costs be if your car is totalled tomorrow and you have to replace it?

Bear in mind you can't Uber until you do AND Uber gets it in the system. So you either find a vehicle quickly, maybe at a not great deal, OR you have no Uber income. For anyone doing this full time it's likely the foformer.And please don't tell me what a great driver you are. I got hit sitting at a red light and pushed into the car in front while driving a 4 month old car. The lady in front of me had only had her car 3 weeks. Things happen. The IRS figures they will, to a certain % of folks. Don't assume you won't be one. Risk is a cost.


----------



## Texas4life57

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


You lost me after HELLO ALL!..


----------



## BurgerTiime

Even the parodies on YouTube know drivers make less than min wage! Lol


----------



## Another Uber Driver

SEAL Team 5 said:


> Easy to screenshot individual trips, screenshot a week that has 1300 miles and 40 hours on line.





Millio007 said:


> WOW this is not even my post and I can defend doing 1000+ miles in 40 hrs in NJ
> OP please provide your 1300mi in 40+hrs


^^^^^^^^This is what I am wondering \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/



GILD said:


> Op says:
> I drove 1,300 miles last week with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> 40 hours? 260 miles a day, 5 days a week? LOL yep thats a lie.
> at 30 miles an hour in NJ, good luck going that fast.


Unless you are spending most of your time on the Turnpike, and, not driving in rush hour, you will be hard put to average thrity two point five miles per hour in the parts of Jersey with which I am familiar. One or two trips into New York City or Philadelphia in a day, and it just _*ain't gonna' happen*_. Thirteen hundred miles in forty hours works out to thirty two point five miles per hour average speed. Urban traffic moves at an average speed of eighteen to twenty two miles per hour.

That stated, I do not know where in Jersey the Original Poster works. I am familiar with large chunks of that state (I have family there), but not all of it. If he is running around Swedesboro and Maple Shade, maybe. If he is running around Hoboken and Weehawken or Trenton and Somerville, I wonder about it, at best.


----------



## Kaliman

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


Your math may be right but your mathematical model is incorrect. The error with your calculations is that you are equating miles driven to miles paid. We all know that we only get paid a percentage of the actual miles that we drive. Go back and fix that please.


----------



## cannonball7

Undermensch said:


> Nerds are cool these days, so I'll take that as a compliment, thanks!


I'd take nerd vs being called a mopy dick anyday!


----------



## LuLubella

I appreciate your granularity but whoa...that's a LOT of detail for a part-time gig like Uber. I never presumed that I would get rich or even pay my mortgage with Uber income. It's a decent, flexible, rather passive way to make extra money. It is what it is. Folks need to accept it for that. Nothing more...nothing less.


----------



## MaxSon1922

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


----------



## Undermensch

Wil_Iam_Fuber'd said:


> $.10 cents per mile. Where did you study business lad?


I've posted all the inputs. Please dispute a line item in those calculations.


----------



## Undermensch

cleansafepolite said:


> maintanence costs? tires?.....oil, timing belt...wipers....um also are you cleaning your car daily...lol...cute how using a rental in your example has non of these listed...how conveinient. sooo cold in here....definately shilly. so shilly....im mean chili. shill.....chili? mmmm great with mole....i mean guaqamole...


You do understand what a rental is right?

With a rental you do not pay for: oil, timing belts, wipers, or even washing the car.


----------



## Undermensch

itsablackmarket said:


> Can't deduct what you don't make. If you're Ubering the way Uber wants you to, in 50,000 miles you'll only generate $20,000 tops. Take $5000 out of that for gas, $500 for tires, then a few thousand for other maintenance items unless you wish to neglect your vehicle and have it be totally worthless by 100k. What do you have? $12,000 something? Great, now factor in insurance costs. It's simple. The risk is extremely high and the reward is laughable.


After all expenses, including forecasted maintenance expenses and deprecation, I make $0.599 cents / mile. With 50k driving I'd keep about $30k.

I could then sell my current car, buy another used 8 year old Prius, and repeat the process.

You are only off by a factor of 3x.


----------



## Undermensch

BurgerTiime said:


> So you need a new car in year to drive because your current one will no longer be valid. Also you never added true depreciation which makes your car worthless due to running it as a taxi with all those miles. Most vehicles have some value left but yours will be worth dirt.
> Did you factor in insurance fees to cover you during period 1? Car washes, parking to pay spots while you stage to avoid tickets and get lunch? Actual tickets and court time. Down time and fuel running back accountable for dead miles? Waited miles and fuel for no shows and wrong located pings?
> Your math is very off and I wish there was a thumbs down for your madness and this being featured.
> Uber has over saturated the markets and you can't account for days where the streets are flooded and you're wasting time/gas. This is why tips are crucial to earning a living. Ask any waitress or bellman.
> You are not making money!
> Show this graph to the thousands of drivers filing bankruptcy. Tell it to the judge.


I think you misunderstand.

Enterprise's rental model provides a ceiling to your expenses. They are making money at renting you cars that you can drive 1k to 2k / week. If you can't manage your expenses to be lower, then rent from Enterprise... you can't both have higher expenses than renting from Enterprise and not own the fact that those higher expenses are just poor business management.


----------



## Undermensch

60000_TaxiFares said:


> Ahh.. the old *aspiring writer / part time driver thing*.... your essay reminds me of .... well if I knew any writers that would be it.
> 
> Now for this questioning the IRS with these statistics..... if they say it's 54c/mi it IS 54c a mile....
> 
> Anybody realistically looking at this (simple) situation of $10,000-$20,000 Uber X cars will see that the average Uber X car cost about *30c/mi *(+/-) to operate. (sans most insurance, financing costs -- one pays those wherever they work) The average car costs about *40c/mi* with ins and financing included. This has been calculated too many times to count on this site and others. Not really Stephen Hawking stuff...
> 
> That *54c/mi* number is *an all encompassing number* ranging from a *4 door 08 Mazda3* to a *50,000+ Cadillac Escalade* or larger commercial vehicle carrying $4000-$8000 in *commercial insurance*.( some perhaps well over the 54c/mi allowance and itemizing on taxes)
> 
> The average Uber X driver gets a little "gift" from the IRS in this case. They're at the low end of the range.
> 
> There are numerous *news articles* and "*Uber Truth*" videos on the internet that use the *54c/mi* figure. Actually its *probably for the better* , 30c/mi is still a lot and many drivers may only calculate gas. Take a $*10,000 accident *with a *$17,000 car* and the Carfax report alone probably costs the owner $4000+ in depreciation. (damn computers) That would be a 54c/mi+ (bad) year.
> 
> "Truthers" are doing *no disservice* to *anyone* turning folks away from these "Timeshare" operations. Not denying anyone a "fantastic opportunity". No sightings of Travis K. with Richard Cheney hauling explosives near the Trade center on Sept 11, 2001....yet.
> 
> There are still *too many reasons* to count to *stay away *from these "Timeshare" companies .... *30c/mi* or *54c* operating cost *doesn't change the scenery all that much.*
> 
> The moderator grams777 did an excellent analysis of many cities after the rate cuts in January , their effect and before and after driver net earnings at base rates...
> https://uberpeople.net/threads/good...ce-for-noobs-to-boobs-good.55290/#post-747235
> 
> Stay Safe
> 
> CC


I have no qualms with people discouraging others from driving TNC, that's fine.

I DO have an issue with them using false claims to discourage others.


----------



## Undermensch

LuLubella said:


> I appreciate your granularity but whoa...that's a LOT of detail for a part-time gig like Uber. I never presumed that I would get rich or even pay my mortgage with Uber income. It's a decent, flexible, rather passive way to make extra money. It is what it is. Folks need to accept it for that. Nothing more...nothing less.


LuLubella! Thanks!  I just wanted to set the record straight and to do it in a verifiable fashion; it takes a lot to compete with brilliantly produced but senseless videos.


----------



## Undermensch

Millio007 said:


> WOW this is not even my post and I can defend doing 1000+ miles in 40 hrs in NJ
> 
> GENIUS how are you going to screen shot 1300 miles while on UBER when they don't provide that in statement unless you take ODO or 3rd party IN-APP DATA. ALL uber provides in statement is PAID MILES. LYFT is a diff story.
> 
> Example again working EWR 8hrs 5 paid trips at a modest avg of 20mi back and Dead-heading back 40+40+40+40+40 = 8hrs/200miles * 5 1000 miles easy
> 
> Now go back to scratching your head Like I said and posted before I have done 200 or close in less then 8hrs in NJ.
> 
> As for Screen shots with TPMS/Tire service and Engine Lights I could care less when its just a BS sensor going OFF.
> 
> OP please provide your 1300mi in 40+hrs


I did 193 miles last night in 7 hours 45 minutes. That was a bit on the low end and turned out to by my highest earnings/mile night other than holidays.

5/9 through 5/15 I did 1,280 miles in 40 hours and 10 minutes. That was a little on the high end though. More typical is 900 to 1,000 miles / week for me (part time though I do rack up 30-40 hours in a typical week).


----------



## Undermensch

cannonball7 said:


> I'd take nerd vs being called a mopy &%[email protected]!* anyday!


Ha ha ha!!! "Let me tell you something, Larry!"


----------



## Undermensch

Kaliman said:


> Your math may be right but your mathematical model is incorrect. The error with your calculations is that you are equating miles driven to miles paid. We all know that we only get paid a percentage of the actual miles that we drive. Go back and fix that please.


Sorry Kaliman, but I can't make sense of your statement.

I can't even find the term "paid miles" in my post. I don't even track "paid miles"; I don't have that number recorded anywhere. All of my profit calculations are based on total miles driven, as are my cost calculations.

The only thing that matters is the total miles driven while outside of my base looking for, enroute to, on rides, or returning from rides.

So could you please take another look at the post and/or point out a specific line where you think I've made this error?


----------



## Undermensch

GILD said:


> accelerated depreciation is REAL COST with uber. Not a made up thing.
> the OP leaves out gas is not 2.00 but 2.50
> 1300 miles a week is almost 200 miles a day. 7 days a week.
> 200 miles at standard rates in the 80 cent a mile range is only $160 GROSS minus fees, your at $120 minus gas, your at $100.
> How the lie are you doing 1300 miles a week and bringing home more than $700 MAX.
> 200 miles at 30 miles an hour would take 7 hours of straight driving with a pax in the car and never slowing down, in NJ? NOT.
> Op is picking up a pax at 7am and driving him for 7 hours on a continuous ping. for 7 days straight? NO he is not.
> Op is only working 40 hrs? That is a lie, uber drivers that work full time HAVE to work 60+ hrs to make $500 a week.
> Your profit on your $2.50 fare is getting you $1400 a week? LMAO, no it is not.
> 
> Op says:
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> 40 hours? 260 miles a day, 5 days a week? LOL yep thats a lie.
> at 30 miles an hour in NJ, good luck going that fast. You would need 8.3 hours with PAX in car! um do you not have to drive to pick them up? of course you do. Do you not have to wait for them? of course you do? You did not drive 250 miles a day in 8 hours. Lets be honest. And you did not make $186 a day as you would have about half those mile in NOT having a PAX in your car. leaving only 125 billable miles. IF your rate is 80/20 you would get GROSS fare of $125 minus uber fee of 25% and minus gas, youd be at a solid $80 for the day. That is the real number for your driving and 5 days a week would net you $400 Not your fictional $932.
> If I didnt know better you seem to be UBER corp telling drivers they can make money. GAS is $2.50 by the way, not $2. Your off by 25% on that alone.
> your putting 5200 miles on your car a month. 2 oil changes you forgot to add in.
> over 60,000 miles a year! WTF. really. You will devalue your car to nil in 2 years.
> 2 sets of tires a year and a set of brakes. $1500 a year EASY with your driving.
> AND you took a car worth $20k and in two years made it worth NOTHING much at all.
> This is a sham, 54 cents a mile is real costs. And no matter what uber wants you to think you are certainly devaluing your car at about that rate. uncle sam is NO fool, but uber is counting on its drivers to be fools.


I also sell tinfoil hats. You might want one! Ha!


----------



## Realityshark

I love reading the posts with phrases like "smart business men" and "running my business " complete with graphs, charts and spreadsheets. 

If these guys were such great businessmen, they wouldn't have to be wasting their lives with Uber.


----------



## Undermensch

Texas4life57 said:


> You lost me after HELLO ALL!..


How about "Howdy"?


----------



## Undermensch

Realityshark said:


> I love reading the posts with phrases like "smart business men" and "running my business " complete with graphs, charts and spreadsheets.
> 
> If these guys were such great businessmen, they wouldn't have to be wasting their lives with Uber.


As opposed to someone with your outlook on life.

I think you might lack perspective on the variety of people who drive UberX. Lots of people do it for fun, they don't need the money. Others do it because it presents additional business opportunities or the ability to fund related businesses (and I'm not talking just about weed dealers).

You can stay on top of your world though, I don't need to knock you down.


----------



## Undermensch

Another Uber Driver said:


> ^^^^^^^^This is what I am wondering \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/ \/
> 
> Unless you are spending most of your time on the Turnpike, and, not driving in rush hour, you will be hard put to average thrity two point five miles per hour in the parts of Jersey with which I am familiar. One or two trips into New York City or Philadelphia in a day, and it just _*ain't gonna' happen*_. Thirteen hundred miles in forty hours works out to thirty two point five miles per hour average speed. Urban traffic moves at an average speed of eighteen to twenty two miles per hour.
> 
> That stated, I do not know where in Jersey the Original Poster works. I am familiar with large chunks of that state (I have family there), but not all of it. If he is running around Swedesboro and Maple Shade, maybe. If he is running around Hoboken and Weehawken or Trenton and Somerville, I wonder about it, at best.


A fair question and you're spot on that there are good areas and bad areas to drive in NJ.

I don't drive in Jersey City, Hoboken, Paramus, Edison, or even Morristown for that very reason: too many stoplights, too much traffic, and the speed limits are too low.

I am very fortunate in that I live right between the turnpike and GSP where they meet. As a result, I do get a lot of rides up the GSP, down the GSP, and up the NJTP (though never down the NJTP, for some reason...). When I drive on the shore people are either going a very short distance home on 40-50 MPH roads with no traffic at night or they are going 30+ miles on the GSP or Rt 18.

I move quickly and I do that intentionally. I've driven in JC and Hoboken for a few rides. Went 10 minutes for a pickup, drove them for 18 minutes, got $3.20. No thanks.

Not everyone can come drive in a region where you can go at high speed, just as I can't get up to Morristown for the surges as it'd take me 60+ minutes to get there. But if you have options to drive in a high traffic, low speed limit, mega stop light area or a low traffic, high speed limit, few stop light area, you have to pick the one that makes you the most money as long as it has rides to support the drivers (which my area does).


----------



## Undermensch

SEAL Team 5 said:


> Easy to screenshot individual trips, screenshot a week that has 1300 miles and 40 hours on line. Crap, I can get a group from The JW Marriott to the airport in 22 mins and its 27 miles away. It's all freeway. Not talking about individual trips, talking about a full 40 hours on line.


I can't screenshot the 1,300 total miles driven because that's my odometer miles... Uber only shows you paid miles, which isn't useful for these sorts of calculations.


----------



## SuckA

The average Toyota or Honda isnt anywhere near .54 cents a mile. A Merecedes Benz on the other hand is closer to .60-.62 a mile as maintenance cost are 3x that of any American or Japanese car.
.56 cents is the current wear and tear cost per mile, don't believe me just ask any Certified Public Accountant.


----------



## Undermensch

SuckA said:


> The average Toyota or Honda isnt anywhere near .54 cents a mile. A Merecedes Benz on the other hand is closer to .60-.62 a mile as maintenance cost are 3x that of any American or Japanese car.
> .56 cents is the current wear and tear cost per mile, don't believe me just ask any Certified Public Accountant.


54 cents/mile is the US IRS standard mileage deduction for 2016. For 2015 it was 57.5 cents/mile.

So you got both of those numbers wrong...

But... those two numbers have nothing to do with *your* costs to operate a vehicle. You can talk to whatever expert you want on whatever topic, and you will get an answer to your question, but your question might still be wrong.


----------



## SuckA

Not that your wrong about the Prius cost per mile, that may correct for a cheapo hybrid car, but if you drive a Mercedes Benz, or similar luxury vehicle you will have much higher cost per mile. 
Cost per mile is operating expense.
Wear and tear is depreciation.


----------



## SurgeMachine

Adbam said:


> A normal person can't buy a car for the wholesale prices enterprise can buy one for.
> 
> Also if you think you can make $900 dollars a week and only pay 10 cents a mile in maintenance and gas on a 2008 u live in a make belive world. Tires shocks power steering alternator brakes all will be bad soon.
> 
> Making 900 a week u are putting over 50k miles a year on your car. How long is your car going to last? All that work and you think 10 cents is all it costs.
> 
> What's .10 x 150000 miles? 15,000. Buying your car, maintenance and gas costs more than 15,000 every 3 years for an uber driver.


It doesn't change the fact that $0.57 (2015s mileage deuction is that not $0.54) per mile is not our cost. Using your example:

150,000 × 0.57 = $85,500

A new car like a fusion, camry, corolla, civic, prius, etc will NOT cost us $85,500 out the door for gas, repairs, maintenace and purchase price over the course of ownership. These cars cost $20K new...So you won't spend $65K in gas and maintenance and repairs over 150K miles.

Bottom line our costs are indeed below $0.57/mile.


----------



## KalianATX

Congrats op. After your math you make $24k a year working full-time and no benefits.

Don't forget to subtract the extra 20% federal tax you'll owe in April. And state tax if applicable.

In general Uber is a horrible deal for people who manage their finances poorly. If you budget right great you can make a whopping $24k adjusted gross.

Most drivers end up screwing themselves because they should be paying off 25% of their cars principal balance minimum each year (paid off in 4 years max) and need things like gap insurance and rideshare gap insurance to be properly covered. And that's hoping their vehicle will hum along to 200k miles when they drive 50k miles a year. But let's face it. Most drivers are not this disciplined and pay mininimum payments and pocket the equity from their mileage deductions so they ultimately still end up owing money when the car finally gives up on them or they get into an accident.

$24k is great for supplemental income if you're old and retired or have some other flexible side gig but it's a poor wage for those that do it for a living as their primary source of income.


----------



## Undermensch

SuckA said:


> Not that your wrong about the Prius cost per mile, that may correct for a cheapo hybrid car, but if you drive a Mercedes Benz, or similar luxury vehicle you will have much higher cost per mile.
> Cost per mile is operating expense.
> Wear and tear is depreciation.


Yes, I think we're in agreement on all of that. Except... wear and tear is maintenance costs... depreciation happens whether the car sits in the garage or not, it also happens in relation to the miles driven but independently of how much you spend on maintenance (you could have zero maintenance costs, but the vehicle would still be less after 5,000 miles than it would've been if you hadn't driven at all).

My only claim in this post is that the costs to operate a vehicle are not equal to the IRS standard deduction rate. They could be higher, they could be lower, but they are most certainly not equal to that deduction rate and anyone using that deduction rate as an input in their profit formula (other than for determining after tax profit) is making a mistake.

I also make a side claim that anyone not able to get their expenses lower than Enterprise should either know that and fully except it (e.g. driving UberX in a Mercedes or Tesla to impress girls, if that's your thing), know it and manage their expenses lower, or know it and rent Enterprise cars during weeks where their miles will be high enough to make it cost less than their car.


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## Undermensch

KalianATX said:


> Congrats op. After your math you make $24k a year working full-time and no benefits.
> 
> Don't forget to subtract the extra 20% federal tax you'll owe in April. And state tax if applicable.
> 
> In general Uber is a horrible deal for people who manage their finances poorly. If you budget right great you can make a whopping $24k adjusted gross.
> 
> Most drivers end up screwing themselves because they should be paying off 25% of their cars principal balance minimum each year (paid off in 4 years max) and need things like gap insurance and rideshare gap insurance to be properly covered. And that's hoping their vehicle will hum along to 200k miles when they drive 50k miles a year. But let's face it. Most drivers are not this disciplined and pay mininimum payments and pocket the equity from their mileage deductions so they ultimately still end up owing money when the car finally gives up on them or they get into an accident.
> 
> $24k is great for supplemental income if you're old and retired or have some other flexible side gig but it's a poor wage for those that do it for a living as their primary source of income.


Ok, I'm not sure where to start...

"No benefits"
Repeat after Riblet, "I have a Jorb": http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/weekend-update-riblet/2842433
My jorb has more Bennies than the Driscoll Bridge

"$24k full-time "
I have $16k revenue after fees and tolls
That's for 9 months driving with taking almost all of January / February 2016 off, or 7 active months
At my current rate per week it'll be closer to $36k

"Subtract an extra 20% Federal Tax"
Any assumptions you had about talking to a math or tax chump should be checked at the door...
I'm operating at a tax loss, so far, on $16k of revenue, after fees and tolls for 7 active months
There is no extra 20%, in my case... in fact, I got money back from the taxes I paid in 2015 on my primary job due to a slight tax loss

"Most drivers end up screwing themselves"
That I can agree with.
I'm trying to improve their situation with facts rather than just calling them stupid or laughing at their mistakes.

"Paying off 25% of their cars principal balance"
Not necessarily true
You do not need to pay off the car, ever
You can simply sell it. To know if/when you have to sell it you've got to do a detailed depreciation worksheet.
Even if you pay the car off in 1 day or 1 year or 4 years, it doesn't matter. Your cost to own the vehicle is the total depreciation while it's in your hands, plus interest, divided by the miles you expect to drive it for (those numbers can change if you decided to sell the vehicle early, or later, or if market conditions change and you get less or more for the vehicle than expected).

"But it's a poor wage for those that do it for a living"
That I agree with. You can do better than the painted picture, but its still with no Social Security withholding for accumulation of retirement benefits, and no other benefits / insurance.
It's a pretty terrible full time gig.
But I think Uber and Lyft are telegraphing that they don't want full timers doing this with their rates.
Granted, some people can't get any other job and it's not a horrible gig for them, particularly if it's a second job and their primary job has some sort of benefits.


This post wasn't really about these topics... it was just about cost per mile to operate a car, but these are important points.


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## Undermensch

SurgeMachine said:


> It doesn't change the fact that $0.57 (2015s mileage deuction is that not $0.54) per mile is not our cost. Using your example:
> 
> 150,000 × 0.57 = $85,500
> 
> A new car like a fusion, camry, corolla, civic, prius, etc will NOT cost us $85,500 out the door for gas, repairs, maintenace and purchase price over the course of ownership. These cars cost $20K new...So you won't spend $65K in gas and maintenance and repairs over 150K miles.
> 
> Bottom line our costs are indeed below $0.57/mile.


Preach! Love it!


----------



## Dback2004

Undermensch said:


> "But it's a poor wage for those that do it for a living"
> 
> That I agree with. You can do better than the painted picture, but its still with no Social Security withholding for accumulation of retirement benefits, and no other benefits / insurance.
> It's a pretty terrible full time gig.
> But I think Uber and Lyft are telegraphing that they don't want full timers doing this with their rates.
> Granted, some people can't get any other job and it's not a horrible gig for them, particularly if it's a second job and their primary job has some sort of benefits.


I couldn't agree more! To all the points made about why do this for $5/hour. Because I work full-time at a "real" job and that's still not enough. $5/hr for work on my terms or none at all, I'll take the $5 and wish Uber would raise their rates above 60c/mile so I can then make $10. Still on my own schedule.


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## SEAL Team 5

Undermensch said:


> I can't screenshot the 1,300 total miles driven because that's my odometer miles... Uber only shows you paid miles, which isn't useful for these sorts of calculations.


Then your dead miles will be with dead time, so you should have 650 miles at 20 hours, correct? Watch your dead miles. #1 rule, you only make money with spinning tires when someone is in your vehicle.


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## Older Chauffeur

Undermensch said:


> That's actually an excellent point... people on Social Security can only have a certain amount of income per month before their benefits get reduced. The tax shielding from the standard mileage deduction is great for them. The fact that they can keep it so they barely make money, on a tax basis, is worth several dollars/hour to them on top of what Uber is paying them.


Your Social Security benefits are affected by earned income until you turn 70; then you can earn as much as you want without any reduction in benefits.


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## Fuzzyelvis

LuLubella said:


> I appreciate your granularity but whoa...that's a LOT of detail for a part-time gig like Uber. I never presumed that I would get rich or even pay my mortgage with Uber income. It's a decent, flexible, rather passive way to make extra money. It is what it is. Folks need to accept it for that. Nothing more...nothing less.


So you are toodling along with no clue what your costs are? We may agree or disagree with the OP but at least we're all thinking about it.

Uber loves you...


----------



## Fuzzyelvis

Undermensch said:


> You do understand what a rental is right?
> 
> With a rental you do not pay for: oil, timing belts, wipers, or even washing the car.


How do you not pay for washing the car?


----------



## Undermensch

Older Chauffeur said:


> Your Social Security benefits are affected by earned income until you turn 70; then you can earn as much as you want without any reduction in benefits.


Good point.

I would imagine that there are more drivers in the 62 to 70 range than there are in the 70+ range... So it might not matter a lot, though it is accurate.


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## Undermensch

Fuzzyelvis said:


> How do you not pay for washing the car?


With a rental? It's weekly. You turn it in at the end of the week and get another one. Let them wash it.


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## Fuzzyelvis

Undermensch said:


> I think you misunderstand.
> 
> Enterprise's rental model provides a ceiling to your expenses. They are making money at renting you cars that you can drive 1k to 2k / week. If you can't manage your expenses to be lower, then rent from Enterprise... you can't both have higher expenses than renting from Enterprise and not own the fact that those higher expenses are just poor business management.


It's entirely possible that Enterprise has not been in this long enough to realise it's not a good deal for them. Or it's simply that right now so many people are renting these cars and not driving very much and returning them quickly that they're making money on the average driver, not the ones driving more miles. The more miles you drive, the less each one will cost. If you're driving 80 hours a week and racking up miles it may work as far as costing less money per mile. But you're likely not making much per HOUR. If you drive less miles each mile is more expensive but you may do better per hour because you only work busy times/surges.


----------



## Undermensch

Fuzzyelvis said:


> How do you not pay for washing the car?


On a side note, I actually covered in the post below that I stopped washing my car and saw my ratings go up. Went 3 weeks without a wash and 2 of the 3 weeks were solid 5.0s, I think. Did a half-assed job washing it at a self-wash place for $6 and haven't gotten a non-5.0 rating since then... don't put too much into washing your car.

https://uberpeople.net/threads/anyone-else-accidentally-getting-better-ratings-lately.78597/


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## Undermensch

Fuzzyelvis said:


> It's entirely possible that Enterprise has not been in this long enough to realise it's not a good deal for them. Or it's simply that right now so many people are renting these cars and not driving very much and returning them quickly that they're making money on the average driver, not the ones driving more miles. The more miles you drive, the less each one will cost. If you're driving 80 hours a week and racking up miles it may work as far as making a little money per mile. But you're likely not making much per HOUR. If you drive less miles each mile is more expensive but you may do better per hour because you only work busy times/surges.


Yes. The intersection between cost / hours / profit is not something that I covered.

All I covered is that, assuming you drive enough miles already to make the Enterprise car cheaper than your own car, then you should switch to the Enterprise car if it's less than your car per mile, after offsetting the tax benefit that you get from your own car.

It's just one variable at a time over here... that's all I, or the scientific method, can handle


----------



## Another Uber Driver

Undermensch said:


> I don't drive in Jersey City, Hoboken, Paramus, Edison, or even Morristown for that very reason: too many stoplights, too much traffic, and the speed limits are too low.
> 
> I am very fortunate in that I live right between the turnpike and GSP where they meet. As a result, I do get a lot of rides up the GSP, down the GSP, and up the NJTP (though never down the NJTP, for some reason...). When I drive on the shore people are either going a very short distance home on 40-50 MPH roads with no traffic at night or they are going 30+ miles on the GSP or Rt 18.
> 
> Went 10 minutes for a pickup, drove them for 18 minutes, got $3.20. No thanks.
> 
> But if you have options to drive in a high traffic, low speed limit, mega stop light area or a low traffic, high speed limit, few stop light area, you have to pick the one that makes you the most money as long as it has rides to support the drivers (which my area does).


You _*ain't gonna' average no thirty two MPH *_in those places, unless it is o-dark-hundred.

Where are you? Woodbridge, Menlo Park, Fords? You need not answer if you do not want to plaster it all over these boards, but, still, I would believe that you could do an average thirty two MPH as long as you stayed around there. If you got anyone who wanted to go to Staten Island, Edison or further into Somerset County, you could get stuck in some nasty traffic. I do not know where people go up there in an Uber, so I must go on what you or other Jersey drivers tell me. If you do get into the Amboys , Red Bank or Asbury Park, I would hope that it would be at night. It can get rough there, especially now that late spring is here and summer will soon be upon us. When I hung up there as a young man, we had a Designated Driver of the Day. If I were a young man still, I would use Uber. We would not need any Designated Driver of the Day.

"No thanks", -eh? You must be a nicer guy than I am. It would take every bit of Mama's Raising Me Right not to run my car into the nearest Burger King over that one,

I would believe that the demand in the part of Jersey under discussion could support the drivers. I know more about the Shore, Somerset County, Hoboken, Weehawken, Tenafly, Passaic, Jersey City and Hackensack than I do about the part under discussion, but I do know something about it. The public transportation, black car and cab service is inconsistent, at best--at least as I remember it. I could see a demand for Uber there, simply because there is nothing else that is consistent. The cost of UberX is low enough that people do not need to get friends to drive them here and there. If you can stay in an area where there is high demand and few hazards, that is the best money maker. Here, if I am driving TNC that day, I like a particular Virginia suburb called Arlington. I know the streets and roads there, from my time hacking there in the late 1970s for a summer job. I know how to get around traffic there. I will work Downtown Washington only because I know how to do it from my hacking. Lately, I have had to avoid it and parts of Arlington at certain times because of too many Uber Pool requests.

This Uber Pool business has thrown a monkey wrench into the whole thing. I have to learn new tricks.



Undermensch said:


> With a rental? It's weekly. You turn it in at the end of the week and get another one. Let them wash it.


Once again, timing is everything in comedy. ROTFLMAOWIPMP.


----------



## UberReallySucks

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


_Only 2 mild components missing in your reasoning:

1. Real life doesn't always follow mathematical models AKA dead miles dead miles dead miles = 0 cents / mile 
2. Lack of consistency and no guarantee you will make tomorrow what you made today - Your math would make more sense if you were a truck driver with a guaranteed number of paid miles every week

As far as Enterprise goes, they are very creative on how they make money.... They don't just depend on their rate / mile because if they did, they would be losing money.... just like the majority of Uber Drivers ... keyword = majority of course._


----------



## Undermensch

UberReallySucks said:


> _Only 2 mild components missing in your reasoning:
> 
> 1. Real life doesn't always follow mathematical models AKA dead miles dead miles dead miles = 0 cents / mile
> 2. Lack of consistency and no guarantee you will make tomorrow what you made today - Your math would make more sense if you were a truck driver with a guaranteed number of paid miles every week
> 
> As far as Enterprise goes, they are very creative on how they make money.... They don't just depend on their rate / mile because if they did, they would be losing money.... just like the majority of Uber Drivers ... keyword = majority of course._


Not sure what you mean about dead miles. I count all miles driven as miles with expenses. Computing expenses doesn't require knowing what your revenue is.

I drive about 1k miles per week. Week after week. It's pretty predictable at this point.


----------



## Michael - Cleveland

Taxi Driver in Arizona said:


> Nerd.
> 
> You are correct in your assertion that driving an old Prius will cost way less than the IRS standard mileage deduction.
> 
> You're still a nerd with all those numbers and whatnot up there.


hehe - you say that like it's a bad thing!


----------



## uber fooled

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


Have you been sniffing that asbestos


----------



## SuckA

All depends on WHAT you drive, and HOW you drive it. I've spent close to 6k alone in the last year on maintenance on my Benz. 
$8,550 a year is not that far off for a LUXURY vehicle.......


----------



## ChortlingCrison

Undermensch said:


> Not sure what you mean about dead miles. I count all miles driven as miles with expenses. Computing expenses doesn't require knowing what your revenue is.
> 
> I drive about 1k miles per week. Week after week. It's pretty predictable at this point.


Do you ever get Susie Greene as a pax?


----------



## 20yearsdriving

Undermensch said:


> Not sure what you mean about dead miles. I count all miles driven as miles with expenses. Computing expenses doesn't require knowing what your revenue is.
> 
> I drive about 1k miles per week. Week after week. It's pretty predictable at this point.


Translation : Low rates don't exist if you don't think of them.
Focus that mental power on how thin you can slice a pickle slice.
When you master slicing that slice in to 6 you'll achieve all the satisfaction you need 
While making other people rich.


----------



## ChortlingCrison

20yearsdriving said:


> Translation : Low rates don't exist if you don't think of them.
> Focus that mental power on how thin you can slice a pickle slice.
> When you master slicing that slice in to 6 you'll achieve all the satisfaction you need
> While making other people rich.


It's got that Amway ring too it.


----------



## 20yearsdriving

ChortlingCrison said:


> It's got that Amway ring too it.


Seriously is my translation close ?


----------



## ChortlingCrison

20yearsdriving said:


> Seriously is my translation close ?


Unfortunately yes. I think that for all business' that seem to operate a bit like pyramid. In my brief two months of amway, (thank goodness I gaveup early on it).. some of the my upline(way up there at diamond level) really pushed selling the motivation tapes, and seminars and such. I remember listening to a couple of tapes. It was all hype lol. I learned later on that some of the uppertier mgt folks were raking in hefty profits. (I kind of figured something that the way try to force it on you).

Anyways it only cost them like .50 cents for each tape, and sell each one for $4/5... and so on lolol


----------



## Another Uber Driver

UberReallySucks said:


> _Real life doesn't always follow mathematical models_


Engineering is mostly mathematics. Any aeronautical engineer worth anything will tell you that a bee can not fly. Anyone who has been stung by one knows that it can.



SuckA said:


> I've spent close to 6k alone in the last year on maintenance on my Benz.


Everything mechanical breaks down. It matters not what it is. If it is mechanical, it breaks down. Those German-badge buggies break down more expensively than do most. I will pass over, for the moment, their being laid up in the shop for weeks waiting for parts from Germany (despite their being built in Alabama, Illinois and North Carolina).


----------



## Michael - Cleveland

Another Uber Driver said:


> Those German-badge buggies break down more expensively than do most.


 Old urban myth. In my personal 20 years experience with Audi and Mercedes, the facts for me are that my German vehicles breakdown FAR less frequently than my US cars and cost only minimally more in parts to repair (dues to the higher quality of the parts)... and the shop labor rates I pay for work are the same, regardless of the make of the vehicle.


> I will pass over, for the moment, their being laid up in the shop for weeks waiting for parts from Germany (despite their being built in Alabama, Illinois and North Carolina).


 I haven't owned any German car made in the US... but in this day and age of logistics and transportation, I never have to wait "weeks" for parts. Last week I replaced the steering rack and power steering pump on my 10 year old Mercedes: I ordered the rack at 10AM on Monday and it was delivered ($189, incl UPS shipping from Detroit) at 4P the next day. The power steering pump ($58) arrived 48 hrs after ordering via USPS priority mail. And the front outer tie-rod end we decided to replace at the same time ($~30) showed up in 48 hours, too.

This isn't 1972.


----------



## Cocobird

Undermensch said:


> Well, it was fun, I like to write
> 
> I've got my asbestos jacket on, I'm ready.


Problem with your Enterprise theory. While the miles that you can drive are unlimited, most people do not drive the car the majority of the time that they have the rental.


----------



## JuanIguana

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


Hmmm.

"Overly generous IRS mileage deduction...."

An accountant you are not, even if you can do math.

The true cost per mile of operating a vehicle is obviously (or maybe not so obvious to some) different for every situation, so mileage deduction factor is also obviously an average of sorts.

There is some pretty good statistical support out there and has been for eons which indicates the average cost of operating a vehicle is likely between 50 and 60 cents per mile nowadays, including insurance, maintenance, cost of borrowing, etc.

Obviously, if you buy a Prius used with 100k miles on it for cheap you may believe you are able to beat the system by naively presuming your cost is only .10 cents per mile or whatever. You might even get lucky and put on another 100k miles on without any maintenance costs, but I pretty much doubt it. I know most cars need tires every 50k.

There is a reason gUber has passed on owning vehicles. They cost a lot to operate and replace.


----------



## Undermensch

Cocobird said:


> Problem with your Enterprise theory. While the miles that you can drive are unlimited, most people do not drive the car the majority of the time that they have the rental.


I covered that in my post. If you drive enough miles, do it. If you don't, don't.


----------



## Another Uber Driver

Michael - Cleveland said:


> This isn't 1972.


Someone forgot to tell my brother, his future son-in-law, the shop foreman at my cab company (at least he can do the work himself--he complains about waiting for parts) as well as a few of my acquaintances and friends.


----------



## Kaliman

Undermensch said:


> Sorry Kaliman, but I can't make sense of your statement.
> 
> I can't even find the term "paid miles" in my post. I don't even track "paid miles"; I don't have that number recorded anywhere. All of my profit calculations are based on total miles driven, as are my cost calculations.
> 
> The only thing that matters is the total miles driven while outside of my base looking for, enroute to, on rides, or returning from rides.
> 
> So could you please take another look at the post and/or point out a specific line where you think I've made this error?





Undermensch said:


> Sorry Kaliman, but I can't make sense of your statement.
> 
> I can't even find the term "paid miles" in my post. I don't even track "paid miles"; I don't have that number recorded anywhere. All of my profit calculations are based on total miles driven, as are my cost calculations.
> 
> The only thing that matters is the total miles driven while outside of my base looking for, enroute to, on rides, or returning from rides.
> 
> So could you please take another look at the post and/or point out a specific line where you think I've made this error?


Sure. You made this one statement: "I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home." What does the $932 represent?


----------



## Undermensch

Kaliman said:


> Sure. You made this one statement: "I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home." What does the $932 represent?


Just say what you think it means.


----------



## ChortlingCrison

And we all went to live happily ever after, even the IRS people. News at 6


----------



## Kaliman

Ok. I think it means the amount that you got paid for the miles that you drove which in this case is 1,300 miles. But what your model does not take into account is that this ratio of $932/1,300 miles is not a constant. This ratio could easily be $500/1,300 or other number. Also, if you drove for 40 hours at an average speed of 32.5 miles per hour this also can vary greatly. And all of this is without accounting for time spent waiting for a call to come (in my case about 15 minutes of waiting per hour online). If your waiting time was the same as mine your average speed would calculate to 43 mph based on your numbers. So my point is that while your mathematical operations are correct, the modeling that you used does not apply in real life driving for TNC's. 

Please note that I am not trying to antagonize you, there is no use in doing that. I'm just pointing out that life gets in the way of our best theories.


----------



## Undermensch

Kaliman said:


> Ok. I think it means the amount that you got paid for the miles that you drove which in this case is 1,300 miles. But what your model does not take into account is that this ratio of $932/1,300 miles is not a constant. This ratio could easily be $500/1,300 or other number. Also, if you drove for 40 hours at an average speed of 32.5 miles per hour this also can vary greatly. And all of this is without accounting for time spent waiting for a call to come (in my case about 15 minutes of waiting per hour online). If your waiting time was the same as mine your average speed would calculate to 43 mph based on your numbers. So my point is that while your mathematical operations are correct, the modeling that you used does not apply in real life driving for TNC's.
> 
> Please note that I am not trying to antagonize you, there is no use in doing that. I'm just pointing out that life gets in the way of our best theories.


Yes, the cost/mile varies for the rental based on miles driven which is why I included a table of examples. If you consistently drive less than 1k miles/week then the rental won't be your least expensive vehicle option. If you consistently drive more than 1,300 miles then it is a good option to look into further.

The 40 hours and 1,300 miles are inclusive of all time and driving outside of my "base". That includes empty rides back on both time and miles, any/all time driving around hunting for rides, moving to locations where I think there will be rides, and even waiting for passengers to get into the car. All of those cost money when operating your own car and all of them bring down the average per mile coat when renting so the number of miles used in both cases is the same.

Regarding average MPH: I use Waze. I live in semi-rural suburban area. I avoid driving in the cities. Speed limits are high and stop lights are few. Waze will often have me take a right or left before a lone stop light that has a tough cycle, routing me to a stop sign where I often save time compared to the light. Every airport run that I do is about 95% freeway time on the way up and back, at 80 MPH (just barely keeping up with traffic). Those are some of the things I do to get my average MPH up.

I don't usually sit still in an area waiting for rides (5 mins max)... It looks like I'm sitting still on the rider map at a location either ahead of or behind me, but I'm moving between locations at most times. That helps reduce my idle time and pushes up my average MPH.

You are correct that the numbers will vary every week. I have a daily Google sheet going back to September 2015 recording all of this information. I'm able to spot averages and trends as a result.

This last week was a short week and it was brutal Mon-Thurs (dozens of cars online in an area that usually had none on those days, I did 25% as much revenue as usual). But the weekend came through with good rides and some huge surge (which I almost never get). I knew this would be a short week because my wife had activities until 7 PM on Friday and 9 PM on Saturday, leaving me watching the kids until she was back. So this week I did 24:15 active time and 795 total miles. Revenue after tolls and fees was $761. Came in around 32 MPH again. Hourly earnings and earnings per mile were way up, but the total was a little lower since I drove only 60% as many hours. If I was renting most weeks and using my car some weeks I would have debated renting this week because of the short Friday / Saturday. Even if I had rented I would have done ok on a total take home basis but it would have decimated my per mile profit.

In summary, yes, all the numbers vary but the number of hours and miles are somewhat predictable and you do have an ability to influence them. I think I said in my post that if someone regularly drives a number of miles per week that makes the rental less expensive than their own car then they should consider renting; if someone does not regularly drive enough hours to make renting less expensive then they should not consider using the rental option.


----------



## DieselkW

Reading through all this has me wondering about the car described to your riders and the car you show up in if you are using a rental.

When I had to sub my wife's car (2015 red Subaru) for my car (2013 black Passat TDI) while I straightened out an insurance issue, I had a hard time explaining to single women that I was, in fact, their driver just temporarily using another car.

If you're exchanging a rental every week, what car do your riders expect you to show up with?


----------



## NoCommission

Undermensch said:


> If there is anything I have provided, it is detail... you might not have looked at the spreadsheet or you might have missed the tabs where I calculate all of that in excruciating detail.
> 
> I've included the pictures below. Yes, I do account for tires, oil, and shocks.
> 
> I have no idea where you pulled this 26 cents / mile number from. You can see in the original post in this message that Enterprise is charging you that and still making money in the process. 26 cents / mile isn't the cost to operate an efficient, reliable, and older car. Not all cars are efficient or reliable though, you do have to choose wisely, and you can't buy a 2015 car and expect to make money.
> 
> View attachment 40765
> 
> 
> View attachment 40766


I don't see engine, transmission and body maintenance in your math. which are the most expensive maintenance cost in any car. Tires, oil change, shocks.etc. is just a regular maintenance.
The $0.54 a mile is a true number and everyone in limousine and taxi business knows about it. It is originally made for luxury cars like lincoln and cadillac and most of the companies doesn't use it because their cost exceed that number most of the time. When those companies files their taxes they have the choice of using this number or writing the actual cost.
Also you just assuming that enterprise will keep this offer all the time. If you are adding 1500 miles a week on their 4 cylinder car that is 78000 a year. 4 cylinder cars last at most 150000 miles and will cost at least half of its original price maintenance just to reach this 150000 miles and in 2 years their car is junk.
How much money they got from uber driver? $210 X 52 weeks X 2 years = 21840
Car cost them between $15000 to 20000 and they spent half of its cost on maintenance $15000+$7500 = 22500
It means $660 loss in two years. add to that all their other expenses. For sure that unlimited offer will no longer available very soon. Plus you already violate their rent contract by not using their car for commercial use. 
You can use the same method if you are using your own car. If you think limousine and taxi companies was just over charging the customers you are wrong this is the cost of transportation in this big country. If you think those transportation companies refusing or they can refuse competition you are wrong too because every year new companies was getting into this market.
The only thing makes you think that you make money because you are not old enough in this business yet to learn from your loss, add to that you work illegally and you don't work with the same rules. 
Don't you see that the fare for uber black (they all limousine drivers) is just almost the same fare for any limousine company added to it the 25% Uber fee? that is because Uber knows that anyone in this business will refuse to accept any job less than the average fare because simply the net profit doesn't exceed 30% in each job. You never asked yourself why taxi cars is not well maintained? because what they get is not worth keeping the car in a best shape all the time. You will know that later and you will not taken care of your car the same as they do because you just doing their job exactly but illegally and for free.


----------



## JimS

I'm surprised there aren't as many Prius Taxis out there.


----------



## JuanIguana

DieselkW said:


> Reading through all this has me wondering about the car described to your riders and the car you show up in if you are using a rental.
> 
> When I had to sub my wife's car (2015 red Subaru) for my car (2013 black Passat TDI) while I straightened out an insurance issue, I had a hard time explaining to single women that I was, in fact, their driver just temporarily using another car.
> 
> If you're exchanging a rental every week, what car do your riders expect you to show up with?


????

Not only how but why would you subject a rider, particularly a woman, to showing up in a different car than is vetted out and registered with uber???

???


----------



## Undermensch

DieselkW said:


> Reading through all this has me wondering about the car described to your riders and the car you show up in if you are using a rental.
> 
> When I had to sub my wife's car (2015 red Subaru) for my car (2013 black Passat TDI) while I straightened out an insurance issue, I had a hard time explaining to single women that I was, in fact, their driver just temporarily using another car.
> 
> If you're exchanging a rental every week, what car do your riders expect you to show up with?


I haven't used the Enterprise rental myself but my understanding from reading posts about it is that the car shows up on your account with the correct license plate and car model soon after (or at the same time) that the rental is started. This would have to be the case for the reason you describe above: your rider is supposed to be able to verify that all the details match; you can get deactivated for driving a car other than the approved vehicle.

A higher volume case of this would be NYC were people are renting Camry's with TLC plates for $450/week... they always have the correct license plate #. Uber is able to activate these quickly since they already know about the car and it's insurance (or trusting Enterprise that it's legit), so it's not like getting a new car and having it take a day or two to activate.


----------



## Undermensch

NoCommission said:


> I don't see engine, transmission and body maintenance in your math. which are the most expensive maintenance cost in any car. Tires, oil change, shocks.etc. is just a regular maintenance.
> The $0.54 a mile is a true number and everyone in limousine and taxi business knows about it. It is originally made for luxury cars like lincoln and cadillac and most of the companies doesn't use it because their cost exceed that number most of the time. When those companies files their taxes they have the choice of using this number or writing the actual cost.
> Also you just assuming that enterprise will keep this offer all the time. If you are adding 1500 miles a week on their 4 cylinder car that is 78000 a year. 4 cylinder cars last at most 150000 miles and will cost at least half of its original price maintenance just to reach this 150000 miles and in 2 years their car is junk.
> How much money they got from uber driver? $210 X 52 weeks X 2 years = 21840
> Car cost them between $15000 to 20000 and they spent half of its cost on maintenance $15000+$7500 = 22500
> It means $660 loss in two years. add to that all their other expenses. For sure that unlimited offer will no longer available very soon.
> You can use the same method if you are using your own car. If you think limousine and taxi companies was just over charging the customers you are wrong this is the cost of transportation in this big country. If you think those transportation companies refusing or they can refuse competition you are wrong too because every year new companies was getting into this market.
> The only thing makes you think that you make money because you are not old enough in this business yet to learn from your loss, add to that you work illegally and you don't work with the same rules.
> Don't you see that the fare for uber black (they all limousine drivers) is just almost the same fare for any limousine company added to it the 25% Uber fee? that is because Uber knows that anyone in this business will refuse to accept any job less than the average fare because simply the net profit doesn't exceed 30% in each job. You never asked yourself why taxi cars is not well maintained? because what they get is not worth keeping the car in a best shape all the time. You will know that later and you will not taken care of your car the same as they do because you just doing their job exactly but illegally and for free.


Sorry, but costs to operate a car are not 54 cents / mile. My OP has all the details on that. What you've posted doesn't really dispute any of that.

Body maintenance? I've had my car 8 years. Haven't had a single body repair. I drive it like it's my car: because it is.

Engine? It's a hybrid. I've floored it off the line for 8 years in a row and never had any issues as acceleration is augmented by an electric motor, which is extremely reliable, instead of by revving the ICE to the red line.

Transmission? It's a hybrid with a continuously meshed planetary gearset with no clutches. I didn't buy this car by mistake: I bought it because it's extremely unlikely to have transmission trouble, ever.

Battery? Nope, not going to be a problem. It's common for them to last 250k+ miles. I've got 150k left (I'm sure I'll get rid of the car before then).



NoCommission said:


> The only thing makes you think that you make money because you are not old enough in this business yet to learn from your loss, add to that you work illegally and you don't work with the same rules.


Oh. I see. Don't argue ideas when you can't win: resort to insults and grandiose claims. Go back under the bridge, troll.


----------



## Another Uber Driver

JimS said:


> I'm surprised there aren't as many Prius Taxis out there.


There are a number of them, here. The drivers complain most about transaxle problems. There were complaints about electrical problems on the earlier models, but, it appears that Toyoda Motors Lte. addressed those problems some time past. Further, those in the taxi shops where they installed meters, lights and other devices learned how to do it properly.



Undermensch said:


> Body maintenance? I've had my car 8 years. Haven't had a single body repair. I drive it like it's my car: because it is.
> 
> Engine? It's a hybrid. I've floored it off the line for 8.
> 
> it's extremely unlikely to have transmission trouble, ever.
> 
> Go back under the bridge, troll.


There is the possibility of someone's hitting you.

Depending on how you do this, you can bash into things here and there, scrape them or bump them slightly. It will create a few scrapes and scratches, it is just the nature of the business. Do it long enough and it will happen. Be as careful as you will, it will happen. I bought my taxi new in 2015. It has a few scratches already. I bought my UberX car new in 2014. It has a few scratches, as well. These two cars are the first new cars that ever I have owned, so I am even more careful with them than usual (I am a bit more careful with the DeSoto, but it is not here right now, anyhow). Still, it happens.

_*Y'ain't apposta' be floorin' no hybrid*_, it defeats the purpose of it. You accelerate gently so that you receive more use from the electric and use the gasolene motor less. In fact, much of the abuse heaped on Prius owners comes from this form of turtling (turtling on a pure electric is a bit different). I do the same on my Fusion hybrids. I get honked at all the time.

The transmission on those things is a bit different than most, allright. It seems to present fewer opportunities for mechanical failure. I have not read up on it enough to make any definitive statements, though. There were a number of articles on the transmissions in the hybrids when those cars first appeared. Most of those articles did state that there were fewer possibilities of failure. The transaxles, however, are another matter. Transaxle failure is a common complaint on Toyotas across the board, at least on Toyotas used as taxis.

The high voltage batteries have gotten better exponentially in the short time that these things have been out here. I can not recall exact figures, anymore, but I seem to recall that "experts" were stating four to six years for the first ones. Now they are stating over ten. I would expect that they would not last as long in a taxi, as the taxi is driven harder and the drain on the electrical is more severe. I have yet to hear any complaints on high voltage battery failure on the taxis, as yet, though. I suspect that it is partly due to the relatively short time that we have had hybrid taxis here and the age-limitations recently put in on the taxis, here.

Please keep in mind that the definition of "troll" is _*NOT*_ "someone who does not agree with Undermensch".


----------



## Undermensch

Cocobird said:


> Problem with your Enterprise theory. While the miles that you can drive are unlimited, most people do not drive the car the majority of the time that they have the rental.


Hmm... let's see. I said if you find that you drive enough miles to make the Enterprise car cheaper than your own car, then you should consider renting from Enterprise.

It's all premised on "if you drive enough". I'm not stupid. I'm not telling people who drive 0 miles per week to rent an Enterprise car, nor am I telling people who drive 500 miles / week to rent.


----------



## Undermensch

Very similar, but more detailed than, my sheets that I posted:

https://uberpeople.net/threads/2015-q4-and-2016-q1-pay-full-disclosure.66689/

Glad to see I'm not the only one tracking lots of details and actual expenses instead of believing / perpetuating the myth that the IRS deduction is the per mile cost rate for all drivers.

Nice work socal_uberx!


----------



## Uber-Doober

Undermensch said:


> The overall point of this is to prove that expenses are not 54 cents / mile... not to argue about what my specific expenses are.
> 
> Regarding Enterprise - What sort of discount do you think they are getting? It's not more than 10-15%, max. But remember they are buying new, they are not buying used cars like UberX drivers should be driving. You should not be in a 2015 vehicle for UberX. But, go ahead and take the discount percentage that you think they get and adjust it out of the numbers... you still won't get to 54 cents / mile, so we agree on that.
> 
> Specifically regarding Prius maintenance, there is a reason I've been buying them since 2002:
> 
> Power Steering
> There is no power steering pump. It's electrically assisted. NEVER fails.
> 
> Brakes
> The Prius almost exclusively uses regenerative braking. The brakes barely wear. I don't think I've even replaced the pads once in 8 years. I had it checked 2 months ago and they told me the pads looked like new.
> 
> Transmission
> There are no meshing / unmeshing gears in a Prius. Instead there is a constantly engaged planetary gearset. It's not that they never fail but there are so many fewer moving parts that the chances of failure are drastically reduced.


Hmmm...
670,000 recalls for power steering and water pump failure.


----------



## socal_uberx

Undermensch said:


> Very similar, but more detailed than, my sheets that I posted:
> 
> https://uberpeople.net/threads/2015-q4-and-2016-q1-pay-full-disclosure.66689/
> 
> Glad to see I'm not the only one tracking lots of details and actual expenses instead of believing / perpetuating the myth that the IRS deduction is the per mile cost rate for all drivers.
> 
> Nice work socal_uberx!


wow, great job dude! especially that depreciation calc. I've excluded it & refuse to even attempt to create a Q&D version b/c it's SOOO intangible overall.

people ask me about it over & over but it's based on hyper specific car qualifications that cannot be easily quantified consistently. but yes, more data allows for analytics & reference measurement to always keep you "driving smarter, not harder" =)

so where do you drive in NJ? I used to live in Hoboken & work in NYC


----------



## NoCommission

Undermensch said:


> Sorry, but costs to operate a car are not 54 cents / mile. My OP has all the details on that. What you've posted doesn't really dispute any of that.
> 
> Body maintenance? I've had my car 8 years. Haven't had a single body repair. I drive it like it's my car: because it is.
> 
> Engine? It's a hybrid. I've floored it off the line for 8 years in a row and never had any issues as acceleration is augmented by an electric motor, which is extremely reliable, instead of by revving the ICE to the red line.
> 
> Transmission? It's a hybrid with a continuously meshed planetary gearset with no clutches. I didn't buy this car by mistake: I bought it because it's extremely unlikely to have transmission trouble, ever.
> 
> Battery? Nope, not going to be a problem. It's common for them to last 250k+ miles. I've got 150k left (I'm sure I'll get rid of the car before then).
> 
> Oh. I see. Don't argue ideas when you can't win: resort to insults and grandiose claims.


I didn't insult you. Or saying the truth about you operating illegally reminded you with bad feeling of breaking the law and take the others jobs without going in a fair competition?. Simply you are saying only your car can make money and avoid any accident, engine, transmission or ticket problem from your math like anyone who goes through all of that is doing that in purpose to his car.


----------



## RansomT

Undermensch: I am glad you are posting this information to get people to think about their actual expenses and you are correct, the 0.54 per mile is an overly conservative estimate. However, coming from an early background in the used car business, you estimates are also overly conservative. For example, according to NADA business, a 2007 Prius with 83+K miles should retail out at around $7750 while a 07 with 150K miles retails out around $4900. This is because a bank will not normally finance a car with that many miles and only cash or buy here lots will deal with those. Another example is your maintenance examples, you are leaving out a whole bunch of other "required" maintenance like transmission fluid changes, suspension work, and yes brakes. If you trade the vehicle off without those maintenance, it will be worth even less. Plus, I don't know how you are paying 1.99 per gallon for gas....

In my market, an 07 is the last year you can use to Uber, plus it must pass a thorough inspection to pass. Without doing all of the required maintenance once the car reaches 120,000 miles or so, it can't pass.

My estimates are that about the cheapest you can by with is 27.5 cents a mile, if you do your own labor with maintenance, and realistically with unknowns (like a nail in a tire, or seat damage, or fixing an oil leak) it's closer to 37.5 cents a mile.


----------



## macinmn

RansomT said:


> My estimates are that about the cheapest you can by with is 27.5 cents a mile, if you do your own labor with maintenance, and realistically with unknowns (like a nail in a tire, or seat damage, or fixing an oil leak) it's closer to 37.5 cents a mile.


Shhhhhhh. these things never happen, until they do and you've already spent the money you should have been allocating for things like this. My incremental cost of driving an Uber mile for a car I own is somewhere between $0.21 and $0.41, the split is an allocation for major repairs of $1000 per 5k miles, which in my 9k Ubering miles has actually been about $1200, so a 33% discount (so $0.34). But who knows if my transmission might go next week {knock on plastic}.


----------



## San Diego X

SurgeMachine said:


> It doesn't change the fact that $0.57 (2015s mileage deuction is that not $0.54) per mile is not our cost. Using your example:
> 
> 150,000 × 0.57 = $85,500
> 
> A new car like a fusion, camry, corolla, civic, prius, etc will NOT cost us $85,500 out the door for gas, repairs, maintenace and purchase price over the course of ownership. These cars cost $20K new...So you won't spend $65K in gas and maintenance and repairs over 150K miles.
> 
> Bottom line our costs are indeed below $0.57/mile.


Perfect, simple answer.


----------



## Undermensch

macinmn said:


> Shhhhhhh. these things never happen, until they do and you've already spent the money you should have been allocating for things like this. My incremental cost of driving an Uber mile for a car I own is somewhere between $0.21 and $0.41, the split is an allocation for major repairs of $1000 per 5k miles, which in my 9k Ubering miles has actually been about $1200, so a 33% discount (so $0.34). But who knows if my transmission might go next week {knock on plastic}.


You set aside $1k for every 5k miles?

Bro... You change the oil every 5k miles not the shocks, brakes, tires, seats, paint job, etc.

If your maintenance costs are $1k every 5k miles you're doing it wrong.


----------



## Undermensch

RansomT said:


> Undermensch: I am glad you are posting this information to get people to think about their actual expenses and you are correct, the 0.54 per mile is an overly conservative estimate. However, coming from an early background in the used car business, you estimates are also overly conservative. For example, according to NADA business, a 2007 Prius with 83+K miles should retail out at around $7750 while a 07 with 150K miles retails out around $4900. This is because a bank will not normally finance a car with that many miles and only cash or buy here lots will deal with those. Another example is your maintenance examples, you are leaving out a whole bunch of other "required" maintenance like transmission fluid changes, suspension work, and yes brakes. If you trade the vehicle off without those maintenance, it will be worth even less. Plus, I don't know how you are paying 1.99 per gallon for gas....
> 
> In my market, an 07 is the last year you can use to Uber, plus it must pass a thorough inspection to pass. Without doing all of the required maintenance once the car reaches 120,000 miles or so, it can't pass.
> 
> My estimates are that about the cheapest you can by with is 27.5 cents a mile, if you do your own labor with maintenance, and realistically with unknowns (like a nail in a tire, or seat damage, or fixing an oil leak) it's closer to 37.5 cents a mile.


Don't worry about my costs for my Prius (which are accurate).

The point here is: if you can't beat the cost of the Enterprise car, after the tax impact of renting instead of driving your own car, then give up and rent. No one should be whining about how their car costs 40 cents / mile if they are driving 2k miles / week - They should be renting!


----------



## Undermensch

Uber-Doober said:


> Hmmm...
> 670,000 recalls for power steering and water pump failure.


So let's see: two free repairs... relevant to the cost of operation, how, again? Oh, right... not at all!


----------



## bezi_NY

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


Well a fleet industry wasn't invented yesterday and proper maintenance should include, all fluids and proper checks of systems. I know a guy with a bunch of 2015 suburbans and he had 6 a/c compressors go out on 6 of them. I know but they are under warranty.. But you have 6 cars out of service that you are paying commercial insurance and all the other good stuff for.. Ok as an individual when are you calculating lost income taking your car for a car wash or an oil change or wipers replaced the interior vacuumed.. I get it, you like working for free! Well you've come to the right place! Welcome aboard son! Welcome aboard!! 

Where's the risk factor in any of your math? Be it a confrontation with a pax or driving 90-150 hours a week? The risk is enormous!! Why do you think ones personal auto insurance charges a higher rate the more you drive? Why do you think Tlc insurance is like $4000.!a year with. Perfect record?

Enterprise will loose money on this deal it has with Uber! Ever hear the saying never buy a car that was used as a rental? O.k so would you buy one that was used as a rental and was also used for ubering in New Jersey? Hell f-Ing no!! Not New Jersey !! ( o.k I had to throw that one in there)

Don't mean to offend anyone but you struck a nerve..  .54 cents is probably accurate across the country as a whole. Some individuals will spend more! I've retired from the auto business and I've seen engines blow followed by transmissions (****** is a bad word now) lol

The bottom line is you have to manage all these issues and no one is keeping accurate logs of time and mileage for this service thing.. You can easily blow a day for these issues.


----------



## bezi_NY

Undermensch said:


> So let's see: two free repairs... relevant to the cost of operation, how, again? Oh, right... not at all!


Surprised you could replace the modul with the need to an adaption.. Most newer cars won't take a part without doing it that way..


----------



## Fuzzyelvis

Undermensch said:


> I don't usually sit still in an area waiting for rides (5 mins max)... It looks like I'm sitting still on the rider map at a location either ahead of or behind me, but I'm moving between locations at most times. That helps reduce my idle time and pushes up my average MPH.


It sounds like you drive a lot of dead miles if you never sit still.


----------



## ChortlingCrison

The fuzzer summed it all up in one sentence. Now lets let this thread RIP.


----------



## BaitNSwitch

I make $130+ a day on 40 - 50 miles TOTAL driving miles including deadhead. 

But I cheat heavily


----------



## Michael - Cleveland

Another Uber Driver said:


> Someone forgot to tell my brother, his future son-in-law, the shop foreman at my cab company (at least he can do the work himself--he complains about waiting for parts) as well as a few of my acquaintances and friends.


If you rely on a shop to get you parts, you'll wait.
Shops don't have the time to hunt down the right part or the ability to 'risk' receiving the wrong one.
If you buy your own parts (and are lucky enough to have a shop/mechanic who will work with 'customer owned parts', you can save a lot of time and money.

I replace a power steering pump pulley and bracket in one of my cars a couple of weeks ago - the dealership where my mechanic works said the parts dept happened to have one is stock - so for the sake of time I told him to use it. The dealership charged me $290 for the part. When I saw that, I went online and bought the identical part, factory new in sealed packaging with the identical mfg p/n on it for $115 delivered in 2 days. I had my mechanic 'return' the part to the parts dept and refund me.


----------



## Uber(Ab) usesPartners

I broke it down in my post without a rental charge.

1.00 per mile, which is a lucky fare in some places. 20 % commission, you get .80 cents. Drop tax into that equation at 28% you keep .52 cents. Not including gas or wear and tear.

No one drives for 50 cents a mile, especially in your own vehicle. 

Yet many hardly get .90 here in LA. What does that amount to?


----------



## Uber-Doober

Undermensch said:


> So let's see: two free repairs... relevant to the cost of operation, how, again? Oh, right... not at all!


^^^
When you have to fork out 400 smackers for the module and 600 to install it?


----------



## Undermensch

Uber-Doober said:


> ^^^
> When you have to fork out 400 smackers for the module and 600 to install it?


??? Recalls are free repairs.


----------



## Uber-Doober

Undermensch said:


> ??? Recalls are free repairs.


^^^
YOU are the one who Prius power steering never going out.... not me.


----------



## Undermensch

bezi_NY said:


> Enterprise will loose money on this deal it has with Uber!
> 
> [...]
> 
> Don't mean to offend anyone but you struck a nerve..  .54 cents is probably accurate across the country as a whole.


If anyone knows fleet management at scale it's going to be Enterprise. I doubt they will lose money on this.

Costs are not 54 cents / mile. That's the whole point of this post: if you can't get your costs under 54 cents / mile, and if you drive enough, then rent from someone who can get their costs even lower.


----------



## Realityshark

I can't believe this thread even exists. Drivers who are unable to grasp basic mathematical concepts are Uber's wet dream. Are there really that many people who don't understand the difference between the IRS's blanket reduction and actual costs?

How hard is this to understand? Maybe this example will help: A $100,000 fully loaded hummer is going to cost more to drive than a $2000 used Honda. 

What should matter is that if you are driving around for less than $1 per mile, then you are not making much of anything regardless of what you are driving.


----------



## bezi_NY

Undermensch said:


> If anyone knows fleet management at scale it's going to be Enterprise. I doubt they will lose money on this.
> 
> Costs are not 54 cents / mile. That's the whole point of this post: if you can't get your costs under 54 cents / mile, and if you drive enough, then rent from someone who can get their costs even lower.


My point is it can be more car given to uber drivers with a lot of dead miles. Enterprise, I'm sure is looking at a lot of data. I think that .54 cents includes your down time. If so what are you keeping logs of your time? I say cab companies would have a better understanding of this. Besides why rent from enterprise when you get a cab in the city and make more?


----------



## macinmn

Undermensch said:


> You set aside $1k for every 5k miles?
> 
> Bro... You change the oil every 5k miles not the shocks, brakes, tires, seats, paint job, etc.
> 
> If your maintenance costs are $1k every 5k miles you're doing it wrong.


yes, because I'm in the mileage and age range where parts wear and tend to need replacing. A/C compressor or lines, window motors, sensors, hoses, tie rods, etc. If I get away with longer life out of components, great, but I'm ready to cover them. Like I said, my last 9k miles have been $1200 instead of $1800 at this estimate, so it's not a total ridiculous figure considering I still need some non-urgent things done: minor body work on underside of door frame, transmission flush, rear window re-tinted, O2 sensor due to bad wiring, 3rd-eye brake light replaced, etc. Like I said this is my incremental cost, a mile driving Uber TODAY, and the costs of driving each mile NOW, not whole life cost which is variable particularly at start and end of life. But even if I figured life cost figures instead with other numbers it is actually a little higher for my particular vehicle. I'm also prepared unlike a lot of people for Florida storm damage or an accident. I will not be posting a crowdfunding to finance my next car with a sob story if something were to happen. We can't all have had the forethought 9 years ago to buy a Prius with the idea someday we would be ferrying around strangers for side cash. I'm proud that you have a different set of numbers, great for you, mine are not yours.


----------



## [email protected]

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


All these calculations ignore the elephant in the room: how much do you need to drive to cover LIVING expenses not operating expenses. Most people are getting $1700 to $3100 a month in bills. How much driving would you need to do to clear that much in a month? I calculated that it would need to be $1.75 mile and $0.45 minute per ride with a minimum $7.50 to get in my car. So for now I am driving on the margin -to borrow stock market lingo- until that final fender bender or 1 star or eviction notice.


----------



## Another Uber Driver

Uber-Doober said:


> recalls for power steering failure.


I wonder if that has anything to do with the rampant transaxle failures in Toyotas across the board. This is in use-for-compensation, mind you, not for a private car.



Undermensch said:


> Bro...If your maintenance costs are $1k every 5k miles you're doing it wrong.


*He ain't just doin' it wrong, Jack, he's headed for Bankruptcy Court, at that rate.*



Undermensch said:


> So let's see: two free repairs... relevant to the cost of operation, how, again? Oh, right... not at all!


The only "relevant" factor in the recalls is the lost income from the down-time. If you are a part-time driver, you can, of course, bring in your vehicle for the recall work when you are going to your regular job. This is fine as long as the dealership does not keep your vehicle. If it does, you start to lose for the down-time. I do not know how Toyota dealerships are about keeping cars or performing service in a timely manner.

Ford dealerships used to be horrible, even when you had an appointment for a relatively simple repair. They have gotten much better. My Fusions have been the subject of a recall, or two. As they are still under warranty and I signed up for the Maintenance Plan, I can have the dealer perform the recall work when either goes in for an oil change, which is frequently. I always have gotten back my car on the same day, unless I chose to leave it overnight. Ford has improved. In most cases, the Maintenance Plan does not pay off, but, when you go for an oil change once a month as do I, it does pay. I get all of the oil changes that I want.

If you are in this business full-time, when your car goes to the shop, you lose twice: once the lost income, once the shop bill. If the taxi goes to the shop, I can rent another one from the shop, which will mitigate the lost income somewhat. In addition, I do have the choice of driving the UberX car, thus not renting a taxi from the shop.. I can make the bare minimum that keeps me out there on base fares, but I must work harder to do it.



Michael - Cleveland said:


> If you rely on a shop to get you parts, you'll wait.
> 
> Shops don't have the time to hunt down the right part or the ability to 'risk' receiving the wrong one.
> 
> If you buy your own parts (and are lucky enough to have a shop/mechanic who will work with 'customer owned parts', you can save a lot of time and money.
> 
> The dealership charged me $290 for the part. When I saw that, I went online and bought the identical part, factory new in sealed packaging with the identical mfg p/n on it for $115 delivered in 2 days. I had my mechanic 'return' the part to the parts dept and refund me.


My original statement was based on using the dealers. My Shop Foreman has told me that he prefers the dealer's parts to what he can get elsewhere. The others have (and had) their maintenance done/repairs made at the dealers.

I would believe that.

In fact, you can save the time and money. The rub on that is that if the customer supplied part fails, you pay both parts and labour to fix it. To be sure, you can get another one from the source, but, in most cases, it is the labour that eats you alive rather than the part. The other problem that I have seen is that the part source tries to weasel out of replacing it by trying to accuse you or your mechanic of installing it improperly. That can be time consuming and frustrating, which is why some do prefer simply to let the shop do everything. It appears that you have a good relationship with your mechanic, so the latter likely is not that big a deal to you.

The dealership always sells you the part for a jacked up price. This is the "list" price, which the shop always charges the customer. Most parts sources have a low-level "consumer" discount off list, which is substantially lower than list. In fact, many sources have an even better discount for taxi, limousine or general commercial customers. This was especially helpful in the days when most cabs were Chrysler products that had the sixty amp alternator. Those things failed frequently. You needed three sockets: half, seven-sixteenths and five-eighths (the half and seven-sixteenths turned almost every nut or bolt on a Chrysler for years, but for the sixty amp alternator, you did need the five-eighths). It took twenty minutes to do the swap out; thirty if you stopped for a cigaret after you took out the thing.


----------



## Michael - Cleveland

[email protected] said:


> All these calculations ignore the elephant in the room: how much do you need to drive to cover LIVING expenses not operating expenses. Most people are getting $1700 to $3100 a month in bills. How much driving would you need to do to clear that much in a month? I calculated that it would need to be $1.75 mile and $0.45 minute per ride with a minimum $7.50 to get in my car. So for now I am driving on the margin -to borrow stock market lingo- until that final fender bender or 1 star or eviction notice.


Wild {edit} WHILE what you need to earn to cover your living expenses is certainly critical and it has nothing to do with your cost of driving TNC. The point the original post makes is that for most drivers, their per mile cost is significantly less than the IRS standard deduction allowed. That's all he was pointing out as a response to so many who post here who confuse the IRS standard mileage deduction amount with their actual out-of-pocket expense.


----------



## [email protected]

Michael - Cleveland said:


> Wild what you need to earn to cover your living expenses is certainly critical and it has nothing to do with your cost of driving TNC. The point the original post makes is that forr most drivers, their per mile cost is significantly less than the IRS standard deduction allowed. That's all he was pointing out as a response to so many who post here who confuse the IRS standard mileage deduction amount with their actual out-of-pocket expense.


I am not off track when I observe that the IRS came up with that per mile deduction from Bureau of the Census calculations that can account for cost of living factors and thus tax the income over and above it. So if you decide not to itemize and use the 0.54 cent per mile deduction you can include ALL miles put on your car that includes the driving around searching for fares, the driving to get the fare and the driving home after the last fare. However, if you decide to itemize then ONLY the fares related to the actual trip are deductible as a line item. Much harder to realize any tax savings that way unless you totaled a vehicle during the year and wound up in ICU. Uncle Sam knows these things and it is a big help in this instance


----------



## Rsabcd

Backdash said:


>


Oh boy a cleaning fee! Do i have to pay taxes on that?


----------



## Jr6233

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


Do you feel it's worth it for a part time gig?


----------



## Newuber5

You are grossly under-estimating the cost of depreciation and maintenance in your equations.
-- You are using Enterprise as an example, however the truth is that Enterprise probably does "lose" money even after the offsetting of in-house discounts and used car brokering they do with their cars when renting to someone who drives 1000 miles a week, but this is offset by the majority of renters whom do not drive 1000 miles a week. ALSO, Enterprise gets the depreciation value of 54 cents a mile (without getting into complex tax equations for depreciation of equipment in a corporate tax structure) as a tax deduction on that same vehicle which is additional profit at the end of the tax year on top of what you paid them. Basically, they write off any of those losses so it doesn't "cost" them anything to put or keep a car on the road. Additionally they male additional profits on selling insurance (which they get bulk rates on) on top of their rental rates ect. THIS is why they are profitable - Not because it costs less to have that car on the road for x amount of miles.
-- You speak of using a 2008 Prius and paying at a cost of 10 cents a mile for maintenance and fuel. That is a ridiculous estimate, if the vehicle is getting to a point where it cannot depreciate any further in value, then it is expected that maintenance costs will increase at a much faster rate than depreciation. This is why we have depreciation, and why warrantees expire. It will need to be replaced which is a cost you are not accounting for. The truth is ALSO, that most people do not drive a vehicle that is flat-lining on depreciation and gets such good gas mileage. Owning and operating an older vehicle for 30 cents a mile is not realistic unless you do very little driving - which most Uber drivers do not.

Of course different vehicles will vary, 54 cents a mile is just an Average cost of maintenance and fuel for IRS simplification. In many cases (majority of cases for vehicles being used for business), the cost is much greater than that. This is why "company cars" are usually itemized for taxes and the simplified .54 a mile IRS option is not used. The .54 a mile option was designed basically for people who use their own car and "sometimes" have to make business trips with their car. Using a car like this, 50,000 miles a year lets say, the costs can easily be much greater than 54 cents a mile.

As it relates to Uber-Driving
-- You are not factoring in the cost of the car itself, or the cost of insurance, or the cost of interest on any car loans you might need/the cost of lost interest if you buy outright in cash.
-- I saw no mention of the fact that your ACTUAL mileage can be much greater than the mileage where you are making revenue on when you have a passenger in the car. I'm sure it varies from geographic area but I generally run 4-5 times more mileage than the mileage of transporting passengers. - be it to pick up a passanger or drive to spot where I can get pings. Also, the mileage doesn't represent the hours on your engine sitting waiting for a ride, red lights (since much uber driving isn't highway driving) or waiting for passengers to get in or out. That adds up quickly as an Uber driver. I'm sure you've heard "high mileage but its all highway miles". Its not for an Uber driver, its mostly stop and go driving.

BTW, I'm not trying to "argue" with you. As one nerd to another, and as a small business owner, you're equations for maintenance are greatly flawed and your example of Enterprise left out that most important factor for their profitability - they get to write off that depreciation on their taxes too! 

However, you did raise a very valid thing - for a full-time Uber driver, it very easily could be more cost effective to rent a vehicle than to use your own in the overall picture. Also might be a better ride for your passengers which could potentially raise ratings and tips.

Cheers


----------



## jaywaynedubya

Enterprise sales there cars around the 50 to 70k mileage point, so they avoid costly repairs and some depreciation.

The lowest Prius per mile cost is around 23 cents per mile


----------



## Michael - Cleveland

[email protected] said:


> I am not off track when I observe that the IRS came up with that per mile deduction from Bureau of the Census calculations


Those are AVERAGES. Are you average?
Averages are used for one purpose. Individual, unique human beings (and companies) use their own actual expenses to determine their profitability. If your actual costs of driving are lower than the IRS std deduction, then you're going to make out well when you do your taxes. If they are higher, then you won't do as well using the std deduction and should use your actual expenses to determine your business use deduction. *However you figure your taxes will not change how much you spend to operate your vehicle per mile*.


----------



## BaitNSwitch

Enterprise and other rental car places don't make much money on the mileage rates/day rates on car. They make their bank off the "full coverage insurance" they encourage you to tack on. Most times there is no incident, all that money goes in their pocket.

Kinda like McDonalds. They don't make much money selling a $1 burger. It's the fries and the coke they rely on to make earnings.


----------



## Another Uber Driver

Newuber5 said:


> -- You are not factoring in the cost of the car itself, or the cost of insurance, or the cost of interest on any car loans you might need/the cost of lost interest if you buy outright in cash.
> 
> the mileage doesn't represent the hours on your engine sitting waiting for a ride, red lights (since much uber driving isn't highway driving) or waiting for passengers to get in or out. That adds up quickly as an Uber driver.
> 
> However, you did raise a very valid thing - for a full-time Uber driver, it very easily could be more cost effective to rent a vehicle than to use your own in the overall picture.


On another topic, the Original Poster maintained that since he already had the car, it cost him nothing to get into this business, either on paper or in reality. When I tried to point out that there was at least an "on paper" or "soft dollar" cost (I did not use the latter term at the time), he kept repeating his arguments in a different way and kept telling me that I was in error. When I refused to "lie down" he called me a "troll", then appointed himself the referee in the little dispute and declared himself the winner. The point of all of this is that the Original Poster does not believe that he need figure in either a hard or soft dollar value or cost of his vehicle.

A motor vehicle is the only piece of machinery where you figure usage based on miles moved rather than operating hours. Even other machinery that moves, such as boats, aeroplanes and railroad locomotives, has usage figured based on operating hours rather than distance moved. There are some Fleet Operators (such as large Police Departments) who do install Operating Hour Meters on their cars, but they use those only for maintenance scheduling purposes.

There are more than a few here who figure that they are better off renting a cab than owning one if they drive full time. I know a few drivers who move between full and part time driving. These guys keep a taxi on the street and registered/licenced. They keep up the insurance (necessary if you want to keep you licence plates). When they drive full time, they leave their cab parked and rent a cab. They maintain that in the end, they are better off, even though, effectively, they are paying expenses on two vehicles (the owner of the rental vehicle considers insurance, maintenance and fees on the vehicle when he determines what he wants for rent).


----------



## [email protected]

Michael - Cleveland said:


> Those are AVERAGES. Are you average?
> Averages are used for one purpose. Individual, unique human beings (and companies) use their own actual expenses to determine their profitability. If your actual costs of driving are lower than the IRS std deduction, then you're going to make out well when you do your taxes. If they are higher, then you won't do as well using the std deduction and should use your actual expenses to determine your business use deduction. *However you figure your taxes will not change how much you spend to operate your vehicle per mile*.


Only drove 10-14 hours per week in 2015 grossed $17,500 net and after standard tax deduction miles only was $3,025 plus self employment tax on that @ 35% of net was $180 on top of my regulate job's wages. I think- but you can verify that yourself - using schedule C worksheet. I REALLY don't have to show my financial panties to you but since I am so fine anyway I ain't scared. This forum should be to help drivers be the best they can and info should be encouraging and mutually supportive. Car payments, car maintenance are not tax deductible unless you line by line itemize and then only depreciation or loss is allowed -at a percentage. I still beg the question--How much do you need to make per mile to LIVE off Uber earnings as a driver? Y'all better whip out your calculators or ask your teen kids cause they know EXACTLY how much it will take to keep them happy. Now Uber offered STRIDE Health miles tracking app to show you the running tally of deductions allowed just using the Federal miles deduction. I give it 5 stars. There are others out there if you want but miles tracker software is a must in this IPhone/Android generation. Look also at Mileage IQ for example.


----------



## Old Rocker

UbieWarrior said:


> Most people are in the 10% tax bracket so 54c mile gross deduction is only 5.4c net.
> 
> 30miles then is only $1.62.
> 
> That is less than the price for gallon of gas.


Uh no. The 54 cents a mile comes right off of your gross Uber income. Your tax bracket has no bearing on your eligibility for this tax deduction.


----------



## Simon

$.54 per mile set by the IRS is an average cost of all vehicles that may be used for business purposes. 

Your per mile cost may be more or less than that depending on your vehicle. It behooves(sp) you to figure that out. 

My cost is about $.38 per mile up or down depending on fuel prices. I drive a 2016 Kia Sorento SXL with tech. I took a $5800 depreciation last year. This year it will be $2600.. based on 15000 miles. But I will do more than that so $2600 ÷ 15000 miles is $.18 per mile this year (down from last year. Edmunds.com

Now find the cost of your maintenance (mine is $100 per year) right now. (That will change) less than a penny per mile.

Tires are about $1200 for 50,000 miles $.03 per mile

Insurance is $863 per year which is a variable per mile cost, because my miles will vary. 

There are other factors that play in... insurance, car tax, registration fees.

All divided by your miles driven. But in the end... it probably is not $.54 per mile.

/thread


----------



## Michael - Cleveland

Old Rocker said:


> Uh no. The 54 cents a mile comes right off of your gross Uber income. Your tax bracket has no bearing on your eligibility for this tax deduction.


Yes - but a minor correction: the deduction comes off your TOTAL income from all sources, not just your Uber income... which means that a loss driving Uber can reduce the amount of tax owed on other income.


----------



## BentleyK9

Very Simple... doesn't need to be complicated.
Drive. Make $ (Avg $200+ weekend)
Fill the tank. $30 avg for weekend.
Deduct mileage when doing taxes end of the year.


----------



## GlenGreezy

macinmn said:


> yes, because I'm in the mileage and age range where parts wear and tend to need replacing. A/C compressor or lines, window motors, sensors, hoses, tie rods, etc. If I get away with longer life out of components, great, but I'm ready to cover them. Like I said, my last 9k miles have been $1200 instead of $1800 at this estimate, so it's not a total ridiculous figure considering I still need some non-urgent things done: minor body work on underside of door frame, transmission flush, rear window re-tinted, O2 sensor due to bad wiring, 3rd-eye brake light replaced, etc. Like I said this is my incremental cost, a mile driving Uber TODAY, and the costs of driving each mile NOW, not whole life cost which is variable particularly at start and end of life. But even if I figured life cost figures instead with other numbers it is actually a little higher for my particular vehicle. I'm also prepared unlike a lot of people for Florida storm damage or an accident. I will not be posting a crowdfunding to finance my next car with a sob story if something were to happen. We can't all have had the forethought 9 years ago to buy a Prius with the idea someday we would be ferrying around strangers for side cash. I'm proud that you have a different set of numbers, great for you, mine are not yours.


You are driving in a beater and upset about costs?


----------



## GlenGreezy

If you drive 1000 miles a week you can rent a car for $400 bucks a week and still only have costs of $0.40 a mile.

Stop. Being stupid for stupids sake.

And that's a terrible deal that's cheaper than what y'all think it costs to drive a car.


----------



## Older Chauffeur

[email protected] said:


> I am not off track when I observe that the IRS came up with that per mile deduction from Bureau of the Census calculations that can account for cost of living factors and thus tax the income over and above it. So if you decide not to itemize and use the 0.54 cent per mile deduction you can include ALL miles put on your car that includes the driving around searching for fares, the driving to get the fare and the driving home after the last fare. However, if you decide to itemize then ONLY the fares related to the actual trip are deductible as a line item. Much harder to realize any tax savings that way unless you totaled a vehicle during the year and wound up in ICU. Uncle Sam knows these things and it is a big help in this instance


If you choose to use actual costs of operating your vehicle for business, you can deduct the percentage of those costs equal to the business use vs personal use of the vehicle. The fares related to a trip are not deductible; that is income. Maybe you meant to say "miles," but that is not correct either. You still need a mileage log to show business and personal use. The same rules would apply regarding business miles- actively engaged in seeking or driving pax, etc. The IRS mileage allowance makes it simpler for most individuals to figure their tax liabilities and spares them more complicated record and receipt keeping, figuring depreciation, interest costs, etc.


----------



## PHXTE

Another Uber Driver said:


> There are a number of them, here. The drivers complain most about transaxle problems. There were complaints about electrical problems on the earlier models, but, it appears that Toyoda Motors Lte. addressed those problems some time past. Further, those in the taxi shops where they installed meters, lights and other devices learned how to do it properly.
> 
> There is the possibility of someone's hitting you.
> 
> Depending on how you do this, you can bash into things here and there, scrape them or bump them slightly. It will create a few scrapes and scratches, it is just the nature of the business. Do it long enough and it will happen. Be as careful as you will, it will happen. I bought my taxi new in 2015. It has a few scratches already. I bought my UberX car new in 2014. It has a few scratches, as well. These two cars are the first new cars that ever I have owned, so I am even more careful with them than usual (I am a bit more careful with the DeSoto, but it is not here right now, anyhow). Still, it happens.


This is nonsense, sorry. There's plenty of body damage you can sustain that doesn't need to be repaired and therefore isn't a recognizable expense. I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars at the body shop if I suffer a door ding, it just ain't happening. I've been driving over 16 years now and owned a dozen different cars and I've never been responsible for running them into anything. And if someone runs into me, they're paying for it, so it's not an expense of mine. You may run your car into things on a regular basis, but I can assure you there are plenty of us who don't.

The notion that "_body maintenance_" is a regular expense is garbage.



> Please keep in mind that the definition of "troll" is _*NOT*_ "someone who does not agree with Undermensch".


Someone that resorts to personal insults because they can't present a compelling argument is a troll, yes.


----------



## Another Uber Driver

PHXTE said:


> This is nonsense,
> 
> sorry.
> 
> Someone that resorts to personal insults because they can't present a compelling argument is a troll, yes.


You have it backwards. This first two quoted lines are accurate descriptions of your post which is totally lacking in any "compelling arguments".

The third quoted line earns you the "HUH?" button.


----------



## dpv

Don't forget insurance endorsement or Ridesharing. That's about an extra <> $45 a month. The endorsement basically gives the insurance company and heads up that you are doing some Ridesharing with your vehicle and in case you're in an accident you're not at risk of getting kicked off your insurance policy.


----------



## Michael - Cleveland

PHXTE said:


> Someone that resorts to personal insults because they can't present a compelling argument is a troll, yes.


Indeed.


----------



## PHXTE

Another Uber Driver said:


> You have it backwards. This first two quoted lines are accurate descriptions of your post which is totally lacking in any "compelling arguments".
> 
> The third quoted line earns you the "HUH?" button.


Thanks for proving my point for me. Feel free to refute anything I said with a factual argument.

Saying:

"You're wrong because I say your wrong!"

......isn't a valid argument. So, try again, kiddo. Explain to me why you think "body maintenance" is a real expenditure.


----------



## Rat

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


Wow, talk about cherry picking a scenario! Most Uber drivers are part time, not full time. Average payout here is $10/hr. BEFORE expenses. So one would drive 40 hours a week to just break even.


----------



## Rat

Undermensch said:


> Nerds are cool these days, so I'll take that as a compliment, thanks!


Only a nerd would claim nerds are cool


----------



## Rat

renbutler said:


> I said that I don't count insurance and registration as per-mile costs because, well, they aren't per-mile costs.
> 
> I mentioned them only because some people insist on including them. They are an expense, but for me they're not an UBER expense, as I would pay them anyway if I didn't drive Uber. So they aren't part of my "under 25" calculation.
> 
> Glad I could clear that up for you.


If you're paying the same rate with or without Ubering, you don't have the correct insurance


----------



## Another Uber Driver

PHXTE said:


> Thanks for proving my point for me. Feel free to refute anything I said with a factual argument.
> 
> Saying: "You're wrong because I say your wrong!"
> 
> ......isn't a valid argument. So, try again, kiddo. Explain to me why you think "body maintenance" is a real expenditure.


I handed back to you exactly what you tried to hand me. Too bad for you, Sparky, I would not take it. You do not like it when someone hands it right back to you, do you? Meanwhile, take your own advice.


----------



## Simon

Rat said:


> Wow, talk about cherry picking a scenario! Most Uber drivers are part time, not full time. Average payout here is $10/hr. BEFORE expenses. So one would drive 40 hours a week to just break even.


Your doing Uber wrong.


----------



## Rat

Simon said:


> Your doing Uber wrong.


Then everybody in town is doing it wrong. I've seen dozens of drivers weekly payouts. They all in the $10-12 range.


----------



## Simon

Rat said:


> Then everybody in town is doing it wrong. I've seen dozens of drivers weekly payouts. They all in the $10-12 range.


Yup.. avg cost to operate an Uber is about $.34 per mile. 1 trip 5 minuts away that goes the min of 1 mile. Typically you lose money. The profit floor is $1.25 per mile rate.


----------



## Rat

Simon said:


> Your doing Uber wrong.


*You're


----------



## Rat

Simon said:


> Yup.. avg cost to operate an Uber is about $.34 per mile. 1 trip 5 minuts away that goes the min of 1 mile. Typically you lose money. The profit floor is $1.25 per mile rate.


$1.05 here. Drove 12 minutes to a fare 20 minutes away to get cancelled. Not even a cancellation fee. Seems we have to be within 5 minutes of arrival to get fee now, is that something new Uber has come up with to us over?


----------



## PS523

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


Have you managed a way to avoid paying taxes? The tax man cometh....


----------



## GlenGreezy

Rat said:


> Wow, talk about cherry picking a scenario! Most Uber drivers are part time, not full time. Average payout here is $10/hr. BEFORE expenses. So one would drive 40 hours a week to just break even.


This makes no sense mathematically.

You work 40 hours to break even?
This isn't an hourly job you either are profitable or you aren't. 6 hrs or 60 hours.


----------



## Rat

GlenGreezy said:


> This makes no sense mathematically.
> 
> You work 40 hours to break even?
> This isn't an hourly job you either are profitable or you aren't. 6 hrs or 60 hours.


I don't rent a car, so I have no need to work 40 hours just to pay the rental fee. I stop by the airport on my way home and grab one fare, then maybe pick up one or two depending where the first in takes me. Then I go home. I can make 20-30 extra a day and get to write off some of what would have been normal commuting expense. When Summer's over and business picks up, I may work more, I may not. Thankfully, I have a real job that pays well. Uber is just a little extra. Damn little


----------



## Finnegan

Depends on your market. Last week in SF we had a 50$ guarantee plus an extra 500$ for 120 rides,2000$ gross for a 50 hour week was not uncommon.

Depends where and when you drive.
SF Bay Area drivers can net 50,000 a year after expenses. Maybe same in NY... Don't know , I don't drive there, but expect Manhattan is competitive with yellow and livery.

Splitting hairs really with all this Truther crap.

Costs about 10$ an hour to operate a 20,000$ car if you're driving it. Gross 30$ plus an hour and it's worth it to drive. If you're counting pennies. Forget it.

Gross income-operating expenses= profit.


----------



## villetta

Fireguy50 said:


> Well done you did asbestos you cancer!
> 
> 
> Any vehicle costing more than 0.54¢ per mile is needing repairs too often, and should be traded in or replaced.
> Or Uber just isn't for you & your vehicle.
> Or you drive like an idiot lowering your mileage and requiring tire replacement more frequently.


That IRS deduction rate includes the depreciating value of your vehicle. Every extra mile you drive decreases the value of your car. It also includes insurance, general maintenance and average mpg fuel expense. Everything associated with the cost of operating a vehicle.


----------



## macinmn

GlenGreezy said:


> You are driving in a beater and upset about costs?


You know that old bumper sticker, 'if you can read this thank a teacher'? The implication is that you can also comprehend the written word. Nowhere was I complaining, but thank you for reading; you'll get there.


GlenGreezy said:


> If you drive 1000 miles a week you can rent a car for $400 bucks a week and still only have costs of $0.40 a mile.
> 
> Stop. Being stupid for stupids sake.
> 
> And that's a terrible deal that's cheaper than what y'all think it costs to drive a car.


I also can't drive a rental in my market, but even so, what about gas costs? what about the cost of getting to and from the rental counter? any new ideas for me? show me the ways of the force, genius.


----------



## Fireguy50

villetta said:


> That IRS deduction rate includes the depreciating value of your vehicle. Every extra mile you drive decreases the value of your car. It also includes insurance, general maintenance and average mpg fuel expense. Everything associated with the cost of operating a vehicle.


I know, so if all that add's up to more than 0.54¢, then you need to change vehicles or change driving styles.
Older cars, larger trucks, and aggressive driving could put your costs over that 54


----------



## Ubernic

0.54 is what makes Uber profitable for some of us. Without that taxes would make it not worth it.


----------



## Undermensch

PS523 said:


> Have you managed a way to avoid paying taxes? The tax man cometh....


Check your assumptions of talking to a tax chump at the door.

I posted my spreadsheets in the Pay section.

Last year I lost money, on a tax basis, to the tune of a $500 loss on $6500 or so in net revenue (this is from memory...). This year I'm $100 away from turning a profit on $10,000 of net revenue. I'm not only driving, I'm also investing modestly in a related pursuit, which allows me to have a few extra deductions. So, for the year, so far, I owe -$30 or so in tax. At the end of the year I expect to owe tax on about $2,000 of income, so about $600 total tax on $20,000 of net revenue. Not bad.


----------



## 20yearsdriving

Undermensch said:


> Check your assumptions of talking to a tax chump at the door.
> 
> I posted my spreadsheets in the Pay section.
> 
> Last year I lost money, on a tax basis, to the tune of a $500 loss on $6500 or so in net revenue (this is from memory...). This year I'm $100 away from turning a profit on $10,000 of net revenue. I'm not only driving, I'm also investing modestly in a related pursuit, which allows me to have a few extra deductions. So, for the year, so far, I owe -$30 or so in tax. At the end of the year I expect to owe tax on about $2,000 of income, so about $600 total tax on $20,000 of net revenue. Not bad.


Still scraping the barrel ?? You really are starting to depress me

There is no justification for being a modern slave


----------



## Michael - Cleveland

Fireguy50 said:


> I know, so if all that add's up to more than 0.54¢, then you need to change vehicles or change driving styles.
> Older cars, larger trucks, and aggressive driving could put your costs over that 54


Older cars that are already fully depreciated (ie: of little value to begin with) have a considerably lower depreciation impact than that of a new car.


----------



## Fireguy50

Michael - Cleveland said:


> Older cars that are already fully depreciated (ie: of little value to begin with) have a considerably lower depreciation impact than that of a new car.


And their maintenance costs are higher, more items reach their wearable life expectancy and need replacement. Plus Uber/Taxi driving style is harsher on vehicles than standard usage.


----------



## Michael - Cleveland

Fireguy50 said:


> And their maintenance costs are higher, more items reach their wearable life expectancy and need replacement. Plus Uber/Taxi driving style is harsher on vehicles than standard usage.


Somewhat nonsense. Consumables (tire, brakes, fluids, wipers blades, shocks, struts, timing belts, hoses, etc.) wear out at that the same rate (mileage) on a car regardless of the age of the car. The two big differences are that compared to using a new car to drive rideshare, the owner doesn't have a car payment to make on a depreciating asset - and the owner is losing much, much less each mile due to depreciation.


----------



## Fireguy50

Michael - Cleveland said:


> Somewhat nonsense. Consumables (tire, brakes, fluids, wipers blades, shocks, struts, timing belts, hoses, etc.) wear out at that the same rate (mileage) on a car regardless of the age of the car. The two big differences are that compared to using a new car to drive rideshare, the owner doesn't have a car payment to make on a depreciating asset - and the owner is losing much, much less each mile due to depreciation.


I disagree there is a sweet spot between 2 to 5 years (30K to 60K miles), when you can get a vehicle priced at a level a person could buy it with cash, no payments. And it would generally be free of any major repairs.

Yes new vehicles have higher payments, and older vehicles have more breakdowns. And those *could* be about the same budgeted cost. But I do believe in that magic age/mileage where the vehicle (lease trade in or ex-rental service) is adorable and virtual maintenance free.


----------



## UberPissed

Simon said:


> Artofbeingcheap.com/calculator
> 
> Think im good on that. Post your solutions.


Just posting numbers from yesterday
Net fare after commission - 199
Miles driven - 112
Hours online 8 (short hiatus to poop and to have lunch with my lady) so maybe 7.25


----------



## Michael - Cleveland

Fireguy50 said:


> I disagree there is a sweet spot between 2 to 5 years (30K to 60K miles), when you can get a vehicle priced at a level a person could buy it with cash, no payments. And it would generally be free of any major repairs.


FWIW
I have over 3,000 trip experience driving an 11 year old Uber X car and a 9 year old Uber SELECT car. 
I purchased the X car for $2,700 (with 60k miles) 
and the Select car for $9,000 (with 34k miles).
Paid cash for each.
My repairs and maintenance are in line with the number of mile I drive each car.​YMMV


----------



## Fireguy50

Michael - Cleveland said:


> FWIW
> I have over 3,000 trip experience driving an 11 year old Uber X car and a 9 year old Uber SELECT car.
> I purchased the X car for $2,700 (with 60k miles)
> and the Select car for $9,000 (with 34k miles).
> Paid cash for each.
> My repairs and maintenance are in line with the number of mile I drive each car.​YMMV


So...
Your not disagreeing?
Hard to tell without face and voice inflection.

I drive a 10 year old 140,000 mile X car and I don't have many maintenance bills yet. Once everything starts to fall apart, time for a trade in


----------



## Michael - Cleveland

Fireguy50 said:


> So...
> Your not disagreeing?
> Hard to tell without face and voice inflection.
> 
> I drive a 10 year old 140,000 mile X car and I don't have many maintenance bills yet. Once everything starts to fall apart, time for a trade in


LOL - no - just taking issue with your "sweet spot between 2 to 5 years".
There is no way to state such a thing and be accurate. If your aunt Gertrude gives you her barely used 2016 Chevy Cruze or her barely used 2005 Chevy Malibu, your maintenance costs are not going to differ all that much. The only significant difference is the depreciation, which takes place mostly in the first 5 years. The point and bottom line are that what you invest in a vehicle - and how much that vehicle depreciates are going to affect your profitability differently. Maintenance costs are similar.


----------



## Ubernic

Maintenance costs are similar until you need to replace an engine, transmission, or another major part of the drivetrain. These are the things that get risky once we reach 150k+.


----------



## tohunt4me

20yearsdriving said:


> Disclaimer contains strong language :


They show how to make wine from fruit juice ?


----------



## m1photo

The old man's back yard had several old cars in it. When asked about them, he said he would not sell them, because so far he had not lost any money on them


----------



## Djc

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


How does 1300 miles equal only $932 of earnings after uber cut? What is the per mile/min rate where you drive? In my market based on where and when I drive my take home before gas/maintenance etc is $700-900 off 350-550 miles driven depending on amount of surge (including my own personal errands miles). For me gas is always approx 8-10% of earnings including my own driving and maintenance is def less than 0.10c per mile (tires and brakes I use last 20,000 miles and cost me $1000 for complete change w alignment, oil changes every 5k miles cost $80 each, remaining $680 for miscellaneous which most will go to suspension maintenance as everything else was made new within 30k miles when I purchased the car as part of my acquisition budget and should last another 50-70k miles at least). So to those that say maintenance is more depends on on your car, age and mechanic. Also for those interested my depreciation is $0.12 per mile based on my acquisition price (low) and current resale values for the year models currently at my target selling mileage (my car keeps high resale value).


----------



## Undermensch

Got a link in an article about UberPeople:

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/ne...n-the-uberpeople-forum?trk_source=recommended



> UberPeople's members can be clearly divided into separate camps: the embittered veterans and the newbie drivers, with a smaller subcategory of "earnings truthers" who have driven for longer and claim to be making decent money.


----------



## Undermensch

Djc said:


> How does 1300 miles equal only $932 of earnings after uber cut? What is the per mile/min rate where you drive? In my market based on where and when I drive my take home before gas/maintenance etc is $700-900 off 350-550 miles driven depending on amount of surge (including my own personal errands miles). For me gas is always approx 8-10% of earnings including my own driving and maintenance is def less than 0.10c per mile (tires and brakes I use last 20,000 miles and cost me $1000 for complete change w alignment, oil changes every 5k miles cost $80 each, remaining $680 for miscellaneous which most will go to suspension maintenance as everything else was made new within 30k miles when I purchased the car as part of my acquisition budget and should last another 50-70k miles at least). So to those that say maintenance is more depends on on your car, age and mechanic. Also for those interested my depreciation is $0.12 per mile based on my acquisition price (low) and current resale values for the year models currently at my target selling mileage (my car keeps high resale value).


Hi Djc - It looks like we're in agreement that vehicle costs can, and should be, kept low. 10 cents / mile for me is all vehicle costs (gas, shocks, oil, and depreciation). My vehicle is similarly low priced ($8k value at the time I started driving, 8 years old), which results in the low deprecation based on expected remaining miles of vehicle life.

My market is a mixed $0.85 / mile and $1.65 / mile area. I drive a lot in the 85 cents zone during the week as it's not worth staying away from my home just on the off chance that I might pickup a $1.65 / mile ride. That pulls my average per mile down from $1.65 on revenue miles.

But note that the 1300 miles is not only revenue miles, it's total miles driven. So if I do a 10 mile drive at $0.85 / mile I'll take home around $9-10 for that ride, but I might drive a total of 20 miles to do it. That makes my per mile after fees and costs (10 cents a mile) equal to 40 cents / mile for that ride. I try not to do a lot of "return home after trip" runs as they really hurt the earnings per mile, but they do happen during the weeknights.

Lyft recently matched the $1.65 / mile rate (they used to pay only $1.10 / mile in that area) and they continue to pay $1.10 / mile where Uber only pays $0.85 / mile, so I've seen more drivers on Lyft lately and started going on Lyft myself. I've been getting good rides with Lyft and try to drive with them as much as I can now. Two weeks ago I hit 38% of total net pay being from Lyft, which is a first. That's helped push my average per mile rate up a bit.

Hope that helps.


----------



## Rich Brunelle

As a small business I don't give a hairy rats ass about your math, I claim $0.54 per mile. I'm sure if I go buy an electric car my costs will be reduced. If I use a rental maybe my costs reduced, but I still will charge $0.54 per mile. Why? Because the government has analized (yes I meant to do that) this issue for decades and their computer says that over the usable lifetime of a car it will cost about that much per mile. This is not just the day it is new, but factored over the log period of use for the vehicle. Your rental may charge a lot more next year. You are not able to see into the future, so you do not know the exact cost of your vehicle. The government is able to see into the future (I trust them, lol) 

Actually, if you do the proper math, your $0.54 is probably higher due to higher insurance costs. Uber needs to accept the $0.54 per mile and pay us accordingly. Or, we could all forget we are in business to make money of adequate supply to justify our doing the task. And regardless your math . . . WE ARE NOT BEING COMPENSATED FAIRLY! 

Do a little more math. After you deduct all your expenses, compare how much Uber makes per trip and the true amount you take home. Most the time Uber takes home more than you.


----------



## Stygge

At 54c a mile road travel represents over 8% of GDP. Keep on driving, you're making us all rich!!


----------



## Undermensch

Rich Brunelle said:


> As a small business I don't give a hairy rats ass about your math, I claim $0.54 per mile. I'm sure if I go buy an electric car my costs will be reduced. If I use a rental maybe my costs reduced, but I still will charge $0.54 per mile. Why? Because the government has analized (yes I meant to do that) this issue for decades and their computer says that over the usable lifetime of a car it will cost about that much per mile. This is not just the day it is new, but factored over the log period of use for the vehicle. Your rental may charge a lot more next year. You are not able to see into the future, so you do not know the exact cost of your vehicle. The government is able to see into the future (I trust them, lol)
> 
> Actually, if you do the proper math, your $0.54 is probably higher due to higher insurance costs. Uber needs to accept the $0.54 per mile and pay us accordingly. Or, we could all forget we are in business to make money of adequate supply to justify our doing the task. And regardless your math . . . WE ARE NOT BEING COMPENSATED FAIRLY!
> 
> Do a little more math. After you deduct all your expenses, compare how much Uber makes per trip and the true amount you take home. Most the time Uber takes home more than you.


I'm not sure who you are "charging" 54 cents a mile.

Your costs are not 54 cents a mile. They might be more (run, run from this business if that's the case) or they might be less (good work), but they certainly are not 54 cents a mile no matter how many rats butts you don't give.


----------



## gofry

I keep reading these threads about depreciation, car expenses and the .54 a mile IRS deduction and I can't help but think that drivers are making this way too complicated.

The .54 per mile rule is what you can deduct from your taxable income (if any). The actual cost to operate your car is quite another thing. Since you can't deduct both, keep your actual costs as low as possible, like Undermensch, but claim the higher .54 per mile when you do your taxes.

Simple, right?


----------



## Simon

Rich Brunelle said:


> As a small business I don't give a hairy rats ass about your math, I claim $0.54 per mile. I'm sure if I go buy an electric car my costs will be reduced. If I use a rental maybe my costs reduced, but I still will charge $0.54 per mile. Why? Because the government has analized (yes I meant to do that) this issue for decades and their computer says that over the usable lifetime of a car it will cost about that much per mile. This is not just the day it is new, but factored over the log period of use for the vehicle. Your rental may charge a lot more next year. You are not able to see into the future, so you do not know the exact cost of your vehicle. The government is able to see into the future (I trust them, lol)
> 
> Actually, if you do the proper math, your $0.54 is probably higher due to higher insurance costs. Uber needs to accept the $0.54 per mile and pay us accordingly. Or, we could all forget we are in business to make money of adequate supply to justify our doing the task. And regardless your math . . . WE ARE NOT BEING COMPENSATED FAIRLY!
> 
> Do a little more math. After you deduct all your expenses, compare how much Uber makes per trip and the true amount you take home. Most the time Uber takes home more than you.


Ugg... that is the avg cost of all makes and models.. from bentlys to the honda fit. Your CPM is unique to you. If your too lazy to calculate that on your own and want the IRS to do it for.. please by all means live in fantasyland.

I profit 40 to 60% in my market at $1.10 per mile X $2 per mile XL. based on $.38 per mile cost using optimal strategy.


----------



## GlenGreezy

Rich Brunelle said:


> As a small business I don't give a hairy rats ass about your math, I claim $0.54 per mile. I'm sure if I go buy an electric car my costs will be reduced. If I use a rental maybe my costs reduced, but I still will charge $0.54 per mile. Why? Because the government has analized (yes I meant to do that) this issue for decades and their computer says that over the usable lifetime of a car it will cost about that much per mile. This is not just the day it is new, but factored over the log period of use for the vehicle. Your rental may charge a lot more next year. You are not able to see into the future, so you do not know the exact cost of your vehicle. The government is able to see into the future (I trust them, lol)
> 
> Actually, if you do the proper math, your $0.54 is probably higher due to higher insurance costs. Uber needs to accept the $0.54 per mile and pay us accordingly. Or, we could all forget we are in business to make money of adequate supply to justify our doing the task. And regardless your math . . . WE ARE NOT BEING COMPENSATED FAIRLY!
> 
> Do a little more math. After you deduct all your expenses, compare how much Uber makes per trip and the true amount you take home. Most the time Uber takes home more than you.


Who cares about reality. I'm too lazy to do my own math.


----------



## GlenGreezy

Rich Brunelle said:


> As a small business I don't give a hairy rats ass about your math, I claim $0.54 per mile. I'm sure if I go buy an electric car my costs will be reduced. If I use a rental maybe my costs reduced, but I still will charge $0.54 per mile. Why? Because the government has analized (yes I meant to do that) this issue for decades and their computer says that over the usable lifetime of a car it will cost about that much per mile. This is not just the day it is new, but factored over the log period of use for the vehicle. Your rental may charge a lot more next year. You are not able to see into the future, so you do not know the exact cost of your vehicle. The government is able to see into the future (I trust them, lol)
> 
> Actually, if you do the proper math, your $0.54 is probably higher due to higher insurance costs. Uber needs to accept the $0.54 per mile and pay us accordingly. Or, we could all forget we are in business to make money of adequate supply to justify our doing the task. And regardless your math . . . WE ARE NOT BEING COMPENSATED FAIRLY!
> 
> Do a little more math. After you deduct all your expenses, compare how much Uber makes per trip and the true amount you take home. Most the time Uber takes home more than you.


Almost forgot.

Stop complaining. QUIT.


----------



## Fireguy50

This is still going?
Top Gear concluded that 3 identical vehicles were not the same after several years of ownership


----------



## Matty760

Just remember, no one is saying their car cost .54 cents a mile, thats just the deduction and its like that to benefit and roughly estimate the cost for most users and etc... also if you have another job, just make sure you have the app on, especially if you drive with lyft so that they track your miles when you drive to different places but don't have any rides, you can then say you were on the app for rides but didnt get any and all those miles you can use for writing off. I drive 8 miles to work one way and I work at a Casino. SO after work I always put on the app and i may actually get a few rides here and there from work that are going right by my house, so not only do I get to write off those miles going home I also get a fare, its a win win for me.


----------



## Stygge

Matty760 said:


> no one is saying their car cost .54 cents a mile


A lot of people (several in this thread) are saying their car and your car cost 54 cents a mile. A 13 page thread has not changed their mind.


----------



## GlenGreezy

Matty760 said:


> Just remember, no one is saying their car cost .54 cents a mile, thats just the deduction and its like that to benefit and roughly estimate the cost for most users and etc... also if you have another job, just make sure you have the app on, especially if you drive with lyft so that they track your miles when you drive to different places but don't have any rides, you can then say you were on the app for rides but didnt get any and all those miles you can use for writing off. I drive 8 miles to work one way and I work at a Casino. SO after work I always put on the app and i may actually get a few rides here and there from work that are going right by my house, so not only do I get to write off those miles going home I also get a fare, its a win win for me.


Lots of people say that it costs that much.


----------



## DieselkW

GlenGreezy said:


> Lots of people say that it costs that much.


Imagine the coincidence of so many people claiming they've thoroughly investigated their costs to drive THEIR car, and lo and behold, surprise surprise, they came up with the same number the IRS came up with.

It's not hard, it's just a minor effort most people don't bother to undertake. I came up with 35¢/mile and using that number I came to understand that it made me a few pennies per trip to drive strangers to where they want to go, not to anywhere I want to go.

Mostly because my dead (pickup) miles were roughly the same as my "reimbursed" miles, so that halved my already meager profit margin in Indianapolis, which charges riders 76¢/mile, 14¢/minute. Commission 20% - well, the math, at 30mph average:

60¢ per mile with a passenger, 0$ per mile without a passenger
11¢ per minute with a passenger 0$ per minute without a passenger.

1000 miles per week, half of those miles with a passenger.
1000 miles @ 30 mph = 33 hours per week. (wheels rolling, waiting for fare = 50 hours per week total)

Weekly gross earnings for those miles with a passenger... (500 miles *$.6)+(990 minutes * $.11)= ($300+109) = $409 gross.
Cost to drive 1000 miles is $350 @ 35¢ per mile.

So I was "working" 50 hours a week for (409-350)= $59 net profit.

Problem for the new kids, they get that $400 per week "pay" and don't consider the costs of earning that money, they think it's all profit minus gas.

Only way ride share is worth doing is to eliminate dead miles by charging the rider SOMETHING to come and get you. They know how far away we are when they place their request... why not charge them for pick up miles? That would reduce dead miles to whatever you drove after drop off to get back in the game, which is totally up to the driver how far to go empty to get a fare.


----------



## DieselkW

I should have been more clear: Charge the rider "something per mile" to come and get you.
Even if it's half the passenger rate, it would have a tremendous impact on reducing dead miles and increasing driver profitability.

Won't happen as long as drivers keep signing up.


----------



## GlenGreezy

DieselkW said:


> Imagine the coincidence of so many people claiming they've thoroughly investigated their costs to drive THEIR car, and lo and behold, surprise surprise, they came up with the same number the IRS came up with.
> 
> It's not hard, it's just a minor effort most people don't bother to undertake. I came up with 35¢/mile and using that number I came to understand that it made me a few pennies per trip to drive strangers to where they want to go, not to anywhere I want to go.
> 
> Mostly because my dead (pickup) miles were roughly the same as my "reimbursed" miles, so that halved my already meager profit margin in Indianapolis, which charges riders 76¢/mile, 14¢/minute. Commission 20% - well, the math, at 30mph average:
> 
> 60¢ per mile with a passenger, 0$ per mile without a passenger
> 11¢ per minute with a passenger 0$ per minute without a passenger.
> 
> 1000 miles per week, half of those miles with a passenger.
> 1000 miles @ 30 mph = 33 hours per week. (wheels rolling, waiting for fare = 50 hours per week total)
> 
> Weekly gross earnings for those miles with a passenger... (500 miles *$.6)+(990 minutes * $.11)= ($300+109) = $409 gross.
> Cost to drive 1000 miles is $350 @ 35¢ per mile.
> 
> So I was "working" 50 hours a week for (409-350)= $59 net profit.
> 
> Problem for the new kids, they get that $400 per week "pay" and don't consider the costs of earning that money, they think it's all profit minus gas.
> 
> Only way ride share is worth doing is to eliminate dead miles by charging the rider SOMETHING to come and get you. They know how far away we are when they place their request... why not charge them for pick up miles? That would reduce dead miles to whatever you drove after drop off to get back in the game, which is totally up to the driver how far to go empty to get a fare.


As dismissive as this sounds...

If you drive a car that costs 54 cents a mile to operate....
You should do something else. The people who's math adds up to that much use weird numbers and imaginary repairs, that haven't actually happened but MAY happen. 
Those very same people WOULD NEVER say "well I spent too much in repairs, but imma ignore what I actually spent and change the numbers to make my point"

Yes you have to put money aside for many things, but in MY MARKET the WORST you can do is spend about 450-460 a week in rental/lease and gas (total), and you drive upwards of 1000 miles. 
So even if you spend 450 in cash out ur pocket a week, the cost per mile can't add up to more than 45¢ a mile.

And that's WORST CASE.

If you own your car, your cpm is lowered to about 30.


----------



## Andy Uber-hol

Blog guy mentioned a tracker app. Stride something. Oops. Deleted it. If someone could refresh my memory, i'd appreciate it. Doesn't pop/up on Google play. If I had a gold star, i'd slap it on your forehead.

Thanking you in advance, I am.


----------



## Older Chauffeur

Stride Drive.


----------



## Rich Brunelle

There will always be a difference of opinion, so long as Uber Logic is given the opportunity to come into play. There are two ways to deal with the costs per mile question. 1.) Take the $0.54 the Government gives you or, 2.) At the end of the year calculate all of your receipts and divide by your mileage for the year. Any other method does not work. Your car that cost $0.30 today just got a flat, you got a bent wheel too. While waiting for a Tow Truck a seagull flying overhead shit on your windshield which shattered due to the heat we have had lately and when the windshield shattered you slopped your coffee all over the inside of your car so now you have to have your car detailed also. End result, now your car costs have seriously been increased for the year. Sure makes more sense just to accept $0.54 and live with it.


----------



## madbrain

Older Chauffeur said:


> Your Social Security benefits are affected by earned income until you turn 70; then you can earn as much as you want without any reduction in benefits.


However, part of your benefits may become taxable, which could make it a very bad idea.

Also, who is going to ride with a 70yr old Uber driver ?


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## madbrain

Undermensch said:


> With a rental? It's weekly. You turn it in at the end of the week and get another one. Let them wash it.


So no passengers ever vomit in your car or otherwise make a mess in it before the rental return date, which would require you to clean it out of pocket ?


----------



## SandyD

Simon said:


> Ugg... that is the avg cost of all makes and models.. from bentlys to the *honda fit.* Your CPM is unique to you. If your too lazy to calculate that on your own and want the IRS to do it for.. please by all means live in fantasyland.
> 
> I profit 40 to 60% in my market at $1.10 per mile X $2 per mile XL. based on $.38 per mile cost using optimal strategy.


My car resembles this remark! Low cost of operation.


----------



## madbrain

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Driving My Car
> 
> 
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


1) I think as many have pointed out, you are only calculating your cost per mile driven. But that is not the same as paid miles.
Where do the dead/unpaid miles fit into the calculations ? I don't drive for Uber yet but I'm looking at numbers to see if it makes sense. What is a typical percentage of dead miles ?

2) I would say that 1300+ miles a week is a lot of miles, especially if you aren't even counting dead miles. You must be lucky to rarely hit traffic or traffic lights, and do a lot of freeway driving if you have an average speed of 32 mph. Hard to imagine you could fit more than 1300 miles in 40 hours/week unless you are doing many long distance trips.

3) I will focus on the calculations for your own car. I think the cost of depreciation of 2.8 cents/mile you computed is way underestimated. It is only correct if you never buy another car once it is run into the ground, unless you are going to buy another used 2008 Prius for ride-sharing at the end, which I don't think you would. An old Prius with lots of miles will need a battery replacement at some point - I speak from experience as I bought a 2001 Prius when it came out, and it needed a new hybrid battery at 8 years, 3 months and 94,000 miles. Back then the warranty was only 8 years and 100,000 miles, whichever came first. Now it is 10 years/150,000 miles in California. I appealed to Toyota and they paid half the price of the battery - total was $3500 total including sales tax , labor, and credit for recycling the battery. Now, of course, your battery mileage will vary, but at some point it will need replacement - it's only a matter of when.

If you are going to buy a new car when your 2008 is done rather than a used car, then you need to average the car's cost over its useful lifetime - depreciation is not a straight line. I understand you already have sunk costs into your existing car, but you will need a replacement car some day, unless you stop driving for Uber and move to an area with useful public transportation. If you are driving 1000+ miles a week, that's 156,000 miles in 3 years.

Which means you would exhaust the typical 3 year/100,000 mile manufacturer warranty, as well as the 10 year/150,000 miles hybrid battery warranty. And even OEM hybrid battery replacements from Toyota do not come with any kind of mileage warranty - only 1 yr warranty.
If you don't want to deal with this yourself and really drive 150k miles in 3 years, that means you should amortize the cost of the car over those 3 years. A Prius goes between 25k - 30k with sales tax in CA depending if it's a Prius I or IV and what kind of deal you get. Reduce it by 5k you might get for the terminal value at 3 years. That's $20k-25k to amortize over 3 years/150,000 miles. Even at the low end, that's 13.3 cents/mile, not 2.8 cents/mile. Yes, you could keep the car a little longer if the hybrid battery is still good, but it's a gamble. I don't think you will get 300k miles/6 years out of one hybrid battery, which would be 6.6 cents/mile. And certainly not 600k miles/12 years which would be 3.3 cents/mile, still more than your 2.8 cents/mile depreciation estimate !

4) With your own car, you are not accounting for other costs like cleaning, downtime during car repairs, deductibles for the accidents whose frequency will surely be increased vs only personal use. You also are not including your personal auto insurance policy which you are required to have on your own car, even if you are only driving it for ride-sharing.


----------



## Undermensch

madbrain said:


> 1) I think as many have pointed out, you are only calculating your cost per mile driven. But that is not the same as paid miles.
> Where do the dead/unpaid miles fit into the calculations ? I don't drive for Uber yet but I'm looking at numbers to see if it makes sense. What is a typical percentage of dead miles ?


Nobody pointed that out... paid miles matter not at all to me if I have to drive home 30 miles after a ride, so I count all miles driven. I count all costs for all miles, and I divide the income by all miles driven.

What I measure is the worst case scenario: it paints your costs as the highest (most accurate) and earnings as lowest (also accurate).

I don't track paid/unpaid miles. At the end of the week I look at my earnings/total miles and that allows me to figure out if I did well on some combination of surge and minimizing dead miles.



madbrain said:


> 2) I would say that 1300+ miles a week is a lot of miles, especially if you aren't even counting dead miles. You must be lucky to rarely hit traffic or traffic lights, and do a lot of freeway driving if you have an average speed of 32 mph. Hard to imagine you could fit more than 1300 miles in 40 hours/week unless you are doing many long distance trips.


That includes dead miles. I don't know how so many people miss that: 1,300 is TOTAL MILES DRIVEN (paid, unpaid, to pickup, back home, etc.)! Yes, I do many trips of 20-50 miles as I live about equidistant from NYC and from the Jersey Shore nightlight hotspots and we've got three major uncongested freeways through that region. I do get lucky with that and it does push up my average speed.



madbrain said:


> 3) I will focus on the calculations for your own car. I think the cost of depreciation of 2.8 cents/mile you computed is way underestimated. It is only correct if you never buy another car once it is run into the ground, unless you are going to buy another used 2008 Prius for ride-sharing at the end, which I don't think you would. An old Prius with lots of miles will need a battery replacement at some point - I speak from experience as I bought a 2001 Prius when it came out, and it needed a new hybrid battery at 8 years, 3 months and 94,000 miles. Back then the warranty was only 8 years and 100,000 miles, whichever came first. Now it is 10 years/150,000 miles in California. I appealed to Toyota and they paid half the price of the battery - total was $3500 total including sales tax , labor, and credit for recycling the battery. Now, of course, your battery mileage will vary, but at some point it will need replacement - it's only a matter of when.


Depreciation != expected maintenance costs. There is no connection between these at all. You said you don't like my 2.8 cents/mile depreciation number but then you talk about battery replacement, which is not depreciation, it is maintenance. If we're going to discuss this further we need to keep these straight.

I posted my spreadsheets with the depreciation calculation elsewhere in the forums (you can find a link on my profile page). Let's talk about particular line items in that calculation. It's all based on KBB / Edmunds values for my car at various ages and mileages in order to deduce the per mile rate and per year rate, along with a projection of how many miles I'll have on the car when I sell it. If there is a factual or calculation error on that sheet, I want to know about it. If not... you can not like it all you want, but it's still legit.

Now, regarding expected maintenance costs: I've done 40k miles since I started driving for Uber (not all for Uber, some personal, I think about 10k) and I've replaced two tires and done a couple oil changes. I've made 3x what the car was worth when I started. If the battery died I'd strongly consider just buying a 2009 Prius of similar speck (about $8k private party) to repeat the process. I'm not worried about maintenance costs as a result.



madbrain said:


> If you are going to buy a new car when your 2008 is done rather than a used car, then you need to average the car's cost over its useful lifetime - depreciation is not a straight line. I understand you already have sunk costs into your existing car, but you will need a replacement car some day, unless you stop driving for Uber and move to an area with useful public transportation. If you are driving 1000+ miles a week, that's 156,000 miles in 3 years.


I'm not going to buy a new car. I tell anyone who will listen that they should only be driving UberX with a used Prius that's no more than 2-3 years newer than the oldest car allowed for UberX.



madbrain said:


> Which means you would exhaust the typical 3 year/100,000 mile manufacturer warranty, as well as the 10 year/150,000 miles hybrid battery warranty. And even OEM hybrid battery replacements from Toyota do not come with any kind of mileage warranty - only 1 yr warranty.
> 
> If you don't want to deal with this yourself and really drive 150k miles in 3 years, that means you should amortize the cost of the car over those 3 years. A Prius goes between 25k - 30k with sales tax in CA depending if it's a Prius I or IV and what kind of deal you get. Reduce it by 5k you might get for the terminal value at 3 years. That's $20k-25k to amortize over 3 years/150,000 miles. Even at the low end, that's 13.3 cents/mile, not 2.8 cents/mile. Yes, you could keep the car a little longer if the hybrid battery is still good, but it's a gamble. I don't think you will get 300k miles/6 years out of one hybrid battery, which would be 6.6 cents/mile. And certainly not 600k miles/12 years which would be 3.3 cents/mile, still more than your 2.8 cents/mile depreciation estimate !


I disagree about the battery. Not all cars need the battery replaced, even at high mileage. It's very similar to a transmission in that some models of cars turn out to have transmissions that fail at a high rate and some people who have one failed transmission in their car end up having it fail a couple more times. You don't see drivers arguing about how to factor in the cost of replacement transmissions (or clutches for manual drivers), but everyone seems to get hungup on battery costs...



madbrain said:


> 4) With your own car, you are not accounting for other costs like cleaning, downtime during car repairs, deductibles for the accidents whose frequency will surely be increased vs only personal use. You also are not including your personal auto insurance policy which you are required to have on your own car, even if you are only driving it for ride-sharing.


Insurance - That's been debated endlessly on the forums. But, I have owned the car for 7.5 years prior to driving Uber. I was always going to have this car. The insurance cost didn't change when I started driving Uber and I'm not going to sell the car if I stop driving for Uber. So insurance is not a cost associated with or attributable to Uber driving, thus I'm not counting it. But even if I did... I'm netting $4000+/month now, so you really want me to chop $75/month off that? Ok, fine, call it $3,925/month... who cares? I have a ride sharing gap insurance quote for $18/month too, so that's not bad either.

Cleaning - I have a post on that... I stopped cleaning my car and my ratings improved. Not joking. I wash it once every month now. Costs me $13.

Expected Costs of Accidents - Don't get in accidents. No seriously. If you're going to get in accidents (even those that are other people's fault) this is probably the wrong business for you. You've got to be driving defensively. I've never had an accident that was my fault and I haven't even been involved in one that was someone else's fault in maybe 8 years and 250k+ miles. I'm not worried about it.

Cost of Downtime for Repairs - Huh? I work 9-5. When the car is in the shop (never) I'm at work.

I'm glad you're interested in driving and that you're looking deeply into the numbers and the reality of the profitability before starting. Best of luck!


----------



## Another Uber Driver

Undermensch said:


> Cost of Downtime for Repairs - Huh? I work 9-5. When the car is in the shop (never) I'm at work.


One of the advantages of having a regular job and driving part time is, as you point out, "guess when the car goes to the mechanic?". If you want a REAL advantage, let the garage be one block from your regular job. I had that advantage for six years, once.

If you drive full time, when your car goes to the garage, you lose twice. If you drive part time, you lose once, only.


----------



## ChortlingCrison

Undermensch said:


> Nobody pointed that out... paid miles matter not at all to me if I have to drive home 30 miles after a ride, so I count all miles driven. I count all costs for all miles, and I divide the income by all miles driven.
> 
> What I measure is the worst case scenario: it paints your costs as the highest (most accurate) and earnings as lowest (also accurate).
> 
> I don't track paid/unpaid miles. At the end of the week I look at my earnings/total miles and that allows me to figure out if I did well on some combination of surge and minimizing dead miles.
> 
> That includes dead miles. I don't know how so many people miss that: 1,300 is TOTAL MILES DRIVEN (paid, unpaid, to pickup, back home, etc.)! Yes, I do many trips of 20-50 miles as I live about equidistant from NYC and from the Jersey Shore nightlight hotspots and we've got three major uncongested freeways through that region. I do get lucky with that and it does push up my average speed.
> 
> Depreciation != expected maintenance costs. There is no connection between these at all. You said you don't like my 2.8 cents/mile depreciation number but then you talk about battery replacement, which is not depreciation, it is maintenance. If we're going to discuss this further we need to keep these straight.
> 
> I posted my spreadsheets with the depreciation calculation elsewhere in the forums (you can find a link on my profile page). Let's talk about particular line items in that calculation. It's all based on KBB / Edmunds values for my car at various ages and mileages in order to deduce the per mile rate and per year rate, along with a projection of how many miles I'll have on the car when I sell it. If there is a factual or calculation error on that sheet, I want to know about it. If not... you can not like it all you want, but it's still legit.
> 
> Now, regarding expected maintenance costs: I've done 40k miles since I started driving for Uber (not all for Uber, some personal, I think about 10k) and I've replaced two tires and done a couple oil changes. I've made 3x what the car was worth when I started. If the battery died I'd strongly consider just buying a 2009 Prius of similar speck (about $8k private party) to repeat the process. I'm not worried about maintenance costs as a result.
> 
> I'm not going to buy a new car. I tell anyone who will listen that they should only be driving UberX with a used Prius that's no more than 2-3 years newer than the oldest car allowed for UberX.
> 
> I disagree about the battery. Not all cars need the battery replaced, even at high mileage. It's very similar to a transmission in that some models of cars turn out to have transmissions that fail at a high rate and some people who have one failed transmission in their car end up having it fail a couple more times. You don't see drivers arguing about how to factor in the cost of replacement transmissions (or clutches for manual drivers), but everyone seems to get hungup on battery costs...
> 
> Insurance - That's been debated endlessly on the forums. But, I have owned the car for 7.5 years prior to driving Uber. I was always going to have this car. The insurance cost didn't change when I started driving Uber and I'm not going to sell the car if I stop driving for Uber. So insurance is not a cost associated with or attributable to Uber driving, thus I'm not counting it. But even if I did... I'm netting $4000+/month now, so you really want me to chop $75/month off that? Ok, fine, call it $3,925/month... who cares? I have a ride sharing gap insurance quote for $18/month too, so that's not bad either.
> 
> Cleaning - I have a post on that... I stopped cleaning my car and my ratings improved. Not joking. I wash it once every month now. Costs me $13.
> 
> Expected Costs of Accidents - Don't get in accidents. No seriously. If you're going to get in accidents (even those that are other people's fault) this is probably the wrong business for you. You've got to be driving defensively. I've never had an accident that was my fault and I haven't even been involved in one that was someone else's fault in maybe 8 years and 250k+ miles. I'm not worried about it.
> 
> Cost of Downtime for Repairs - Huh? I work 9-5. When the car is in the shop (never) I'm at work.
> 
> I'm glad you're interested in driving and that you're looking deeply into the numbers and the reality of the profitability before starting. Best of luck!


I wonder if this is a record for the longest "comment" ever posted on this site.


----------



## madbrain

Undermensch said:


> What I measure is the worst case scenario: it paints your costs as the highest (most accurate) and earnings as lowest (also accurate).


Wouldn't the worst case be that you get no/very few rides and earnings are near 0 ?



> That includes dead miles. I don't know how so many people miss that: 1,300 is TOTAL MILES DRIVEN (paid, unpaid, to pickup, back home, etc.)! Yes, I do many trips of 20-50 miles as I live about equidistant from NYC and from the Jersey Shore nightlight hotspots and we've got three major uncongested freeways through that region. I do get lucky with that and it does push up my average speed.


OK. That wasn't clear from your original post. Too bad you don't count the dead vs paid miles - IMO that would be useful information to have, IMO. Maybe someone else can share their numbers. One other question I have, is how did you come up with the earnings estimation ?



> I posted my spreadsheets with the depreciation calculation elsewhere in the forums (you can find a link on my profile page).


I will look for them, thanks.



> I'm not going to buy a new car.  I tell anyone who will listen that they should only be driving UberX with a used Prius that's no more than 2-3 years newer than the oldest car allowed for UberX.


OK, that makes some sense.



> I disagree about the battery. Not all cars need the battery replaced, even at high mileage. It's very similar to a transmission in that some models of cars turn out to have transmissions that fail at a high rate and some people who have one failed transmission in their car end up having it fail a couple more times. You don't see drivers arguing about how to factor in the cost of replacement transmissions (or clutches for manual drivers), but everyone seems to get hungup on battery costs...


Well, batteries are the luck of the draw. I just haven't been lucky on my 2001 Prius. I think people do get unhappy about replacing transmissions just as they do with hybrid batteries - any big maintenance item is an issue on a used car out of warranty, IMO.



> Insurance - That's been debated endlessly on the forums. But, I have owned the car for 7.5 years prior to driving Uber. I was always going to have this car. The insurance cost didn't change when I started driving Uber and I'm not going to sell the car if I stop driving for Uber. So insurance is not a cost associated with or attributable to Uber driving, thus I'm not counting it. But even if I did... I'm netting $4000+/month now, so you really want me to chop $75/month off that? Ok, fine, call it $3,925/month... who cares? I have a ride sharing gap insurance quote for $18/month too, so that's not bad either.


In my case, the current insurance company won't cover ride sharing. I would have to switch to a different company. And not just auto policy since we have auto/home/umbrella with one insurer and get multi-policy discounts. Splitting policies between multiple insurers would cost much more. Overall cost for our 3 policies (home/2 cars/umbrella) would be about $450 more a year - only $150 of that is for TNC period 1 gap coverage. However, I have not found an insurer that offers an umbrella valid in period 2/3 - I have a thread in the insurance forum about that and it got no response.



> Expected Costs of Accidents - Don't get in accidents. No seriously. If you're going to get in accidents (even those that are other people's fault) this is probably the wrong business for you. You've got to be driving defensively. I've never had an accident that was my fault and I haven't even been involved in one that was someone else's fault in maybe 8 years and 250k+ miles. I'm not worried about it.


I think you are lucky. I have been in accidents that weren't my fault. Drunk driver hit me in my first year of driving my 2001 Prius. Hit and run, out of state plate. $8k of damage. Driver was never apprehended. 80 miles from my home too. I had collision deductible waiver so I didn't pay anything. But it took more than a month to get parts from Japan on that car and get it repaired. The joys of being an early adopter... My rental coverage ran out due to the long delay. It was a big hassle. The car got a check engine light again the day I picked it up, too. But after that it ran great, until the hybrid battery failed as mentioned earlier.



> Cost of Downtime for Repairs - Huh? I work 9-5. When the car is in the shop (never) I'm at work.


Surely sometimes they take more than 1 day ? So, you would need to arrange for alternate transportation in that case. That cost would be attributable to increased maintenance time/frequency of repairs. Also, how do you drive 1300 miles for Uber as well as 9-5 ?



> I'm glad you're interested in driving and that you're looking deeply into the numbers and the reality of the profitability before starting. Best of luck!


Thanks. This is actually mostly for my husband who is long term unemployed. He drives a 2011 Prius that is paid for. We are in a high tax bracket due to my salary so the 54 cents/mile tax deduction would be valuable if it's really a lot higher than actual costs. But still, we don't want to be driving only for the tax break. It would be good if he could have some actual earnings, and hopefully shelter them all in a tax deductible individual 401k. That would be better than working a low-wage salary job and have his pay taxed at 43% between income and payroll taxes. I might drive a bit in my car as well just for the signup bonus; I don't know if it's worth it. I may not have enough time to do it.


----------



## Illinoisdriver

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


Your take home sucks pretty bad in that area for the amount of miles your putting on a vehicle. Yes, your making lot's of people money buying gas, rental, insurance, etc. But what your keeping besides paying out some taxes is pretty bad. But as with anything if your liking what you do, then good for you. I don't see your model as really viable for many who would see that $31000 pay before taxes very profitable.


----------



## Gung-Ho

This is the bet uber infomercial thread ever. 

Said it before I'll say it again.The standard deduction for the IRS of .54 per mile is simply that A STANDARD DEDUCTION. Not any different than your standard deduction from income tax as opposed to ITEMIZED DEDUCTIONS.

Your ACTUAL costs of operating a vehicle for hire, if you keep accurate records, may in fact be more or less than the standard deduction allowed. It is up to the individual to decide which method will work best BUT once you choose one method you have to continue using that method.

The only true barometer determining how profitable you are is actual costs against income earned. Throw the .54 a mile out for this equation because every situation is different. examples: age of car used for depreciation, gas mileage of car, reliability of car cos of repairs etc...


----------



## oregonuberduber

After reading a few of the OP's posts, he's obviously an "uberite". Larry David agrees.


----------



## UberIsAScam

Good God, I have never seen one person spend so much time justifying driving for Fuber. LOL. Total Uberite with a chip on the shoulder.


----------



## renbutler

I have mixed feelings about Uber overall (although the low rates are making it more and more difficult to be positive, as a driver).

However, he's right about the mileage costs. Using 54c/mile on your taxes makes sense, but using it to determine your real-world profit ??


----------



## PHXTE

UberIsAScam said:


> Good God, I have never seen one person spend so much time justifying driving for Fuber. LOL. Total Uberite with a chip on the shoulder.


I don't think he's doing that at all. He seems to be one of the few around here that understands the most basic of accounting principles and I think he's giving a fair assessment of his costs vs what he's making.

Seriously, if I had a dollar for every dolt on this website that thinks the IRS standard deduction rate is their _actual expense rate_, I'd be rich.


----------



## Uber SUCKS for drivers!

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


Nope, all wrong, you netted about $200 on 40 hours, or $5/hour, killing your personal car! :-(
Really stupid example, Enterprise prices for about 500 miles per week avg.
Your initial assumption was reeeeally stupid because, you cant even do Uber in a rental :-(
The real & true total cost in any decent car is the full IRS $.575/mile now, not the old $.54!


----------



## Uber SUCKS for drivers!

Undermensch said:


> Almost, but not quite. Two issues with that:
> 
> Cost Per Mile - That's what this thread is about and what the truthers claim is 54 cents / mile for everyone (it's not)
> -30% for taxes - Missing a step
> F - (F - (B - A) * 0.54) * 0.3 = After Tax Profit
> The profit is not all taxable since a good portion of it is shielded by the 54 cents / mile deduction
> 
> Otherwise, correct.


There is no such thing as taxes! Every uberx driver is operating at a loss! There is no profit. Why even bring up taxes??? No such thing!


----------



## the rebel

Uber SUCKS for drivers! said:


> Nope, all wrong, you netted about $200 on 40 hours, or $5/hour, killing your personal car! :-(
> Really stupid example, Enterprise prices for about 500 miles per week avg.
> Your initial assumption was reeeeally stupid because, you cant even do Uber in a rental :-(
> The real & true total cost in any decent car is the full IRS $.575/mile now, not the old $.54!


Yes you can do uber in a rental in some markets, in Denver the charge was $253 a week some of which was the base charge, and some of which was the sales and rental taxes.


Uber SUCKS for drivers! said:


> There is no such thing as taxes! Every uberx driver is operating at a loss! There is no profit. Why even bring up taxes??? No such thing!


the poster was talking about the sales and rental taxes for a rental car.


----------



## the rebel

The best number I have always found for projecting actual cost come from the triple A yearly study of what drivers were paying on average based on car type, for a small sedan that drives at least 20,000 miles a year it is $.38 a mile, for a mid size it was $.49 and it changes from there. http://exchange.aaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Your-Driving-Costs-2015.pdf

Now those numbers include basically everything, including gas and repairs as well as depreciation and loan interest, the one thing that is not included is your additional insurance riders and such.

Which means if you are driving for $.85 a mile, than you are not making nearly what many think but you are doing better than the $.54 IRS deduction. 
at $.85 using AAA numbers, 
.85
-.2125 uber fee
-.38 cost for car per mile
-.38 cost per deadmile (average same total miles as loaded)
-$.12 a mile

the only way to even come close to making a profit is to make more than $1 a mile. In Denver between mile and minute pricing I average about $1.22 in total loaded pay per mile. Meaning after the uber fees and triple AAA driving costs I make about .155 per mile profit, which is one reason catching the surge and guarantees are so damn important. Without those you would net $201 in actual profits driving 1300 miles. Not a great hourly income to get those 1300 miles.


----------



## Uber SUCKS for drivers!

the rebel said:


> The best number I have always found for projecting actual cost come from the triple A yearly study of what drivers were paying on average based on car type, for a small sedan that drives at least 20,000 miles a year it is $.38 a mile, for a mid size it was $.49 and it changes from there. http://exchange.aaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Your-Driving-Costs-2015.pdf
> 
> Now those numbers include basically everything, including gas and repairs as well as depreciation and loan interest, the one thing that is not included is your additional insurance riders and such.
> 
> Which means if you are driving for $.85 a mile, than you are not making nearly what many think but you are doing better than the $.54 IRS deduction.
> at $.85 using AAA numbers,
> .85
> -.2125 uber fee
> -.38 cost for car per mile
> -.38 cost per deadmile (average same total miles as loaded)
> -$.12 a mile
> 
> the only way to even come close to making a profit is to make more than $1 a mile. In Denver between mile and minute pricing I average about $1.22 in total loaded pay per mile. Meaning after the uber fees and triple AAA driving costs I make about .155 per mile profit, which is one reason catching the surge and guarantees are so damn important. Without those you would net $201 in actual profits driving 1300 miles. Not a great hourly income to get those 1300 miles.


You got it right, $5/hr if ur lucky! :-(


----------



## Uber SUCKS for drivers!

the rebel said:


> Yes you can do uber in a rental in some markets, in Denver the charge was $253 a week some of which was the base charge, and some of which was the sales and rental taxes.
> 
> the poster was talking about the sales and rental taxes for a rental car.


No, he wasnt. Ur refering to the wrong post, its the one above that. He was specifically talking about net profit (which is none) after 30% income taxes, pay attention! LOL


----------



## GlenGreezy

If you work 55 hours and pay $400 a week in rent, and make $1450 before paying the weekly rental, what did you make for the week?

Let's see....
1450-400=1050. 

IF YOU DEPRECIATE YOUR CAR MORE THAN YOU CAN RENT SOMEBODY ELSES CAR FOR.... YOU ARE AN IDIOT AND DESERVE TO MAKE NO MONEY.


----------



## the rebel

GlenGreezy said:


> If you work 55 hours and pay $400 a week in rent, and make $1450 before paying the weekly rental, what did you make for the week?
> 
> Let's see....
> 1450-400=1050.
> 
> IF YOU DEPRECIATE YOUR CAR MORE THAN YOU CAN RENT SOMEBODY ELSES CAR FOR.... YOU ARE AN IDIOT AND DESERVE TO MAKE NO MONEY.


Even if you take out the rent, you are forgetting the gas, and I would love to know where you are making $1450 a week in net fares after Uber fees. That is driving at least 2,500 miles a week (most truck drivers I have talked to average about 3,000 miles a week working 70+ hours a week on highways), at $2.10 a gallon and 31 miles to the gallon you are looking at $170 a week for gas, meaning you are making $880 a week. Not all that great if you are working 7 days a week 11 hours a day.


----------



## GlenGreezy

the rebel said:


> Even if you take out the rent, you are forgetting the gas, and I would love to know where you are making $1450 a week in net fares after Uber fees. That is driving at least 2,500 miles a week (most truck drivers I have talked to average about 3,000 miles a week working 70+ hours a week on highways), at $2.10 a gallon and 31 miles to the gallon you are looking at $170 a week for gas, meaning you are making $880 a week. Not all that great if you are working 7 days a week 11 hours a day.


NYC.

And that's light. Might be in 800-1000 miles.

Stop crying and start working. Or do something else b.


----------



## renbutler

Uber SUCKS for drivers! said:


> There is no such thing as taxes! Every uberx driver is operating at a loss! There is no profit. Why even bring up taxes??? No such thing!


By driving only surges and UberXL, I'm actually going to turn a positive profit this year (after my profit was negative in 2015).

So, what you said is not true for all people.


----------



## the rebel

GlenGreezy said:


> NYC.
> 
> And that's light. Might be in 800-1000 miles.
> 
> Stop crying and start working. Or do something else b.


Right called out on your lies so insult the person who caught it, typical response. driving 1000 total miles at $1.75 a mile in an rental which is always UberX is not going to pay $1400, sorry if you cannot even calculate your own pay and hours.


----------



## Undermensch

Uber SUCKS for drivers! said:


> Nope, all wrong, you netted about $200 on 40 hours, or $5/hour, killing your personal car! :-(
> Really stupid example, Enterprise prices for about 500 miles per week avg.
> Your initial assumption was reeeeally stupid because, you cant even do Uber in a rental :-(
> The real & true total cost in any decent car is the full IRS $.575/mile now, not the old $.54!


Oh darn. You schooled me.

On a side note, old 54??? 54 cents/mile is current for 2016. Get it right if you're going to try to be all knowing about it.


----------



## Undermensch

Illinoisdriver said:


> Your take home sucks pretty bad in that area for the amount of miles your putting on a vehicle. Yes, your making lot's of people money buying gas, rental, insurance, etc. But what your keeping besides paying out some taxes is pretty bad. But as with anything if your liking what you do, then good for you. I don't see your model as really viable for many who would see that $31000 pay before taxes very profitable.


Thanks "New Member"!!!


----------



## Undermensch

Uber SUCKS for drivers! said:


> You got it right, $5/hr if ur lucky! :-(


Sorry bro, but your taxi/limo company isn't going to survive. Time to change your business model.


----------



## Undermensch

the rebel said:


> The best number I have always found for projecting actual cost come from the triple A yearly study of what drivers were paying on average based on car type, for a small sedan that drives at least 20,000 miles a year it is $.38 a mile, for a mid size it was $.49 and it changes from there. http://exchange.aaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Your-Driving-Costs-2015.pdf
> 
> Now those numbers include basically everything, including gas and repairs as well as depreciation and loan interest, the one thing that is not included is your additional insurance riders and such.
> 
> Which means if you are driving for $.85 a mile, than you are not making nearly what many think but you are doing better than the $.54 IRS deduction.
> at $.85 using AAA numbers,
> .85
> -.2125 uber fee
> -.38 cost for car per mile
> -.38 cost per deadmile (average same total miles as loaded)
> -$.12 a mile
> 
> the only way to even come close to making a profit is to make more than $1 a mile. In Denver between mile and minute pricing I average about $1.22 in total loaded pay per mile. Meaning after the uber fees and triple AAA driving costs I make about .155 per mile profit, which is one reason catching the surge and guarantees are so damn important. Without those you would net $201 in actual profits driving 1300 miles. Not a great hourly income to get those 1300 miles.


The entire point of my post was that if your costs are that high you should rent. End of story.


----------



## Undermensch

UberIsAScam said:


> Good God, I have never seen one person spend so much time justifying driving for Fuber. LOL. Total Uberite with a chip on the shoulder.


Don't take my advice the wrong way, but: I don't want you to drive for Uber.


----------



## Older Chauffeur

Gung-Ho said:


> It is up to the individual to decide which method will work best BUT once you choose one method you have to continue using that method.


This statement is incorrect. From IRS Publication 510:

"To use the standard mileage rate for a car you own, you must choose to use it in the first year the car is available for use in your business. Then, in later years, you can choose to use the standard mileage rate or actual expenses.

For a car you lease, you must use the standard mileage rate method for the entire lease period (including renewals) if you choose the standard mileage rate."


----------



## UberIsAScam

Undermensch said:


> Don't take my advice the wrong way, but: I don't want you to drive for Uber.


I'm not in the business of driving people around for free, so don't worry, my Fuber days are but a painful distant memory.


----------



## Gung-Ho

Older Chauffeur said:


> This statement is incorrect. From IRS Publication 510:
> 
> "To use the standard mileage rate for a car you own, you must choose to use it in the first year the car is available for use in your business. Then, in later years, you can choose to use the standard mileage rate or actual expenses.
> 
> For a car you lease, you must use the standard mileage rate method for the entire lease period (including renewals) if you choose the standard mileage rate."


O.K. Correct. You HAVE to choose *standard deduction* in the first year if you want to use that as an option in later years. If you choose actual costs in the first year you can't go back to standard deduction.

And it's publication 463 not 510.


----------



## GlenGreezy

the rebel said:


> Right called out on your lies so insult the person who caught it, typical response. driving 1000 total miles at $1.75 a mile in an rental which is always UberX is not going to pay $1400, sorry if you cannot even calculate your own pay and hours.


You are an idiot. 1400 is LIGHT for that. That's total miles. Not just paid miles.


----------



## Older Chauffeur

Gung-Ho said:


> O.K. Correct. You HAVE to choose *standard deduction* in the first year if you want to use that as an option in later years. If you choose actual costs in the first year you can't go back to standard deduction.
> 
> And it's publication 463 not 510.


No, I quoted Publication 510. Read it for yourself. There are probably many mentions of the business use of vehicles in the tax code; they most likely all say the same thing.


----------



## BostonBarry

Finally got caught up on my bookkeeping, coming in at $0.386/mile for a 2015 Sedona, profit margin of 78%, and hourly net over $22/hour.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EWo96PkH_cCu13GLn-UZlcBy-hAEZl9U-UXMCYc3dqw/edit?usp=sharing


----------



## Papa

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


Apples and Oranges...The IRS Rate does not apply to rentals or leases...


----------



## Undermensch

Papa said:


> Apples and Oranges...The IRS Rate does not apply to rentals or leases...


I think you've missed the point.

There are many on this forum who claim the cost to operate a vehicle IS the IRS rate of 54 cents/mile.

This post is to debunk that.


----------



## Older Chauffeur

Papa said:


> Apples and Oranges...The IRS Rate does not apply to rentals or leases...


Not quite right..... from IRS Publication 510- (Emphasis on the word "lease" is mine)

*Standard Mileage Rate -* For the current standard mileage rate, refer to Publication 463, _Travel, Entertainment, Gift, and Car Expenses_, or search standard mileage rates on IRS.gov. To use the standard mileage rate, you must own or *lease* the car and:

You must not operate five or more cars at the same time, as in a fleet operation,
You must not have claimed a depreciation deduction for the car using any method other than straight-line,
You must not have claimed a Section 179 deduction on the car,
You must not have claimed the special depreciation allowance on the car,
You must not have claimed actual expenses after 1997 for a car you lease, and
You cannot be a rural mail carrier who received a "qualified reimbursement."

To use the standard mileage rate for a car you own, you must choose to use it in the first year the car is available for use in your business. Then, in later years, you can choose to use the standard mileage rate or actual expenses.

For a car you *lease*, you must use the standard mileage rate method for the entire lease period (including renewals) if you choose the standard mileage rate.


----------



## Lance A

Undermensch said:


> I think you've missed the point.
> 
> There are many on this forum who claim the cost to operate a vehicle IS the IRS rate of 54 cents/mile.
> 
> This post is to debunk that.


Really...wow. Usually it is less but sometimes more too. I saw a stat that said 60-70% of vehicles come in under the IRS guidelines for expenses. But that leaves a lot of drivers paying too much in taxes if they use that rate. The other night my passenger was a driver himself. He drove a 2014 BMW but still used the standard deduction. I questioned him on host actual expenses and he admitted he didn't know. He did say he spent $5K on his extended warrantee however


----------



## Papa

Undermensch said:


> I think you've missed the point.
> 
> There are many on this forum who claim the cost to operate a vehicle IS the IRS rate of 54 cents/mile.
> 
> This post is to debunk that.


I didn't miss the point at all. You can't compare the two...


----------



## Papa

Older Chauffeur said:


> Not quite right..... from IRS Publication 510- (Emphasis on the word "lease" is mine)
> 
> *Standard Mileage Rate -* For the current standard mileage rate, refer to Publication 463, _Travel, Entertainment, Gift, and Car Expenses_, or search standard mileage rates on IRS.gov. To use the standard mileage rate, you must own or *lease* the car and:
> 
> You must not operate five or more cars at the same time, as in a fleet operation,
> You must not have claimed a depreciation deduction for the car using any method other than straight-line,
> You must not have claimed a Section 179 deduction on the car,
> You must not have claimed the special depreciation allowance on the car,
> You must not have claimed actual expenses after 1997 for a car you lease, and
> You cannot be a rural mail carrier who received a "qualified reimbursement."
> 
> To use the standard mileage rate for a car you own, you must choose to use it in the first year the car is available for use in your business. Then, in later years, you can choose to use the standard mileage rate or actual expenses.
> 
> For a car you *lease*, you must use the standard mileage rate method for the entire lease period (including renewals) if you choose the standard mileage rate.


It's not the standard lease, and there is no way to address this on a blog...I advise to seek professional advise from an accountant...

In terms of your comparison, there are far too many variations in determining profitability with Uber...


----------



## Older Chauffeur

Papa said:


> It's not the standard lease, and there is no way to address this on a blog...I advise to seek professional advise from an accountant...
> 
> In terms of your comparison, there are far too many variations in determining profitability with Uber...


The IRS doesn't dictate the lease terms, they simply allow the mileage deduction under the rules set forth. If you are leasing a car, you don't own it. But the IRS treats both the same with regard to the SMR. Two people with the same credit score can lease identical cars from the same dealer, with the same lessor, and yet pay different amounts, just like buying a car outright or with financing. As far as the IRS is concerned, they can all deduct the SMR for business use.
I was replying to your blanket statement that mileage was not deductible on leased cars. That is not true. 
I have a CPA who gives me advice on business and tax matters, but I don't need to have him read to me the IRS publication I referenced, as it is plainly stated.
Not sure what you are referring to in your last sentence.....


----------



## Undermensch

Papa said:


> I didn't miss the point at all. You can't compare the two...


No, I really think you did miss it.

Expenses are not 54 cents/mile and, if your actual costs are higher than renting would be, then you should rent.

There is no silly non-comparable comparison here. It's quite detailed.

But it's ok if you don't follow.


----------



## Papa

Older Chauffeur said:


> The IRS doesn't dictate the lease terms, they simply allow the mileage deduction under the rules set forth. If you are leasing a car, you don't own it. But the IRS treats both the same with regard to the SMR. Two people with the same credit score can lease identical cars from the same dealer, with the same lessor, and yet pay different amounts, just like buying a car outright or with financing. As far as the IRS is concerned, they can all deduct the SMR for business use.
> I was replying to your blanket statement that mileage was not deductible on leased cars. That is not true.
> I have a CPA who gives me advice on business and tax matters, but I don't need to have him read to me the IRS publication I referenced, as it is plainly stated.
> Not sure what you are referring to in your last sentence.....


Where did you read on my post that a blanket statement that mileage was not deductible on leased cars???


----------



## Papa

Undermensch said:


> No, I really think you did miss it.
> 
> Expenses are not 54 cents/mile and, if your actual costs are higher than renting would be, then you should rent.
> 
> There is no silly non-comparable comparison here. It's quite detailed.
> 
> But it's ok if you don't follow.


Wow, you people really read into replys...

I find nothing silly about your post, just responded that the comparison is not possible due to potential variations...

How one files is complex and conditional is all...your "Blanket" comparison is not plausible...we'll leave it there.

You good, I'm good...


----------



## Older Chauffeur

Papa said:


> Where did you read on my post that a blanket statement that mileage was not deductible on leased cars???


Your post #294:
"Apples and Oranges...The IRS Rate does not apply to rentals or leases..."


----------



## Papa

Older Chauffeur said:


> Your post #294:
> "Apples and Oranges...The IRS Rate does not apply to rentals or leases..."


touche...

Poor reply on my part...


----------



## Older Chauffeur

Papa said:


> Wow, you people really read into replys...
> 
> I find nothing silly about your post, just responded that the comparison is not possible due to potential variations...
> 
> How one files is complex and conditional is all...your "Blanket" comparison is not plausible...we'll leave it there.
> 
> You good, I'm good...


By definition, a conversation is made up of replies. Isn't that what forums like this are all about- an exchange of ideas, opinions and suggestions?


----------



## Older Chauffeur

Papa said:


> touche...
> 
> Poor reply on my part...


It's all good.


----------



## reg barclay

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey....


Firstly, apologies I didn't read the whole post so if I missed something sorry. I agree that 0.54/mile isn't some magic number that applies to every driver in the country. IMHO some people may pay less per mile than this and some more based on numerous factors such as what year/model car they own, how they drive, what maintenance they perform and whether or not they do their own repairs. I imagine the IRS figure is based on some sort of average cost, so the fact that the IRS came up with this would show that driving a car costs quite a bit more than many people imagine. I think the analogy from Enterprise is somewhat flawed since I assume rental companies don't just walk into car dealerships and buy new cars at full price, I'd imagine they have some kind of deal in place whereby they get cars cheaper, possibly in bulk. I also imagine they don't just take their cars to any mechanic on the street for maintenance, maybe they have their own mechanics or some other deal. So that in the end their costs of owning a car are probably less than the costs an individual would pay for the same car.

Another point that nobody seems to mention is this. Let's say person A owns a 2014 car for his personal use and drives it 10,000 miles per year for 4 years then sells it. Now say person B does the same thing but also drivers 10000 miles per year for uber. Even though person B drove double the miles, his end cost will likely be less than double what person A's cost was. Therefore when person B works out his uber costs, instead of coming up with his per mile rate by dividing the total cost by total miles, he could instead subtract how much he would have paid had he only driven his personal miles from the total, then divide what is left by the total number of uber miles, which would yield a cheaper per mile rate.


----------



## Undermensch

reg barclay said:


> Firstly, apologies I didn't read the whole post so if I missed something sorry. I agree that 0.54/mile isn't some magic number that applies to every driver in the country. IMHO some people may pay less per mile than this and some more based on numerous factors such as what year/model car they own, how they drive, what maintenance they perform and whether or not they do their own repairs. I imagine the IRS figure is based on some sort of average cost, so the fact that the IRS came up with this would show that driving a car costs quite a bit more than many people imagine. I think the analogy from Enterprise is somewhat flawed since I assume rental companies don't just walk into car dealerships and buy new cars at full price, I'd imagine they have some kind of deal in place whereby they get cars cheaper, possibly in bulk. I also imagine they don't just take their cars to any mechanic on the street for maintenance, maybe they have their own mechanics or some other deal. So that in the end their costs of owning a car are probably less than the costs an individual would pay for the same car.
> 
> Another point that nobody seems to mention is this. Let's say person A owns a 2014 car for his personal use and drives it 10,000 miles per year for 4 years then sells it. Now say person B does the same thing but also drivers 10000 miles per year for uber. Even though person B drove double the miles, his end cost will likely be less than double what person A's cost was. Therefore when person B works out his uber costs, instead of coming up with his per mile rate by dividing the total cost by total miles, he could instead subtract how much he would have paid had he only driven his personal miles from the total, then divide what is left by the total number of uber miles, which would yield a cheaper per mile rate.


Yes.

On the first point: yes, the IRS rate includes Ford F-250 pickup trucks, delivery trucks, and automobiles. The average is quite skewed by those more expensive and more expensive to operate vehicles.

On the second point: the rental comparison is used to show people that if they really want to claim their costs are 54 cents/mile that they should compute the cost of renting for themselves and rent if the cost to rent would be lower. It's been impossible to get people to realize that their costs are not 54 cents/mile without this analogy.

On the third point: yes, most people are over-attributing depreciation of a vehicle owned for personal use entirely to Uber. I only count the added depreciation from additional miles and months that I will own this car now (the months is probably unnecessary since if I stopped Ubering and sold this car I would immediately replace it with a new car, so Ubering isn't causing me to have a car thus I shouldn't count the time depreciation unless I was planning to sell and buy a car that is even less expensive).

Thanks for your thoughtful comments and contribution.


----------



## renbutler

Undermensch said:


> On the third point: yes, most people are over-attributing depreciation of a vehicle owned for personal use entirely to Uber. I only count the added depreciation from additional miles and months that I will own this car now (the months is probably unnecessary ...


Yeah, it's so easy to calculate the depreciation based on mileage, using online appraisal tools. That's the only depreciation that I calculate when determining how much it costs to operate the vehicle for Uber or anything else.

Other parts of depreciation affect the cost to OWN a vehicle, but I would own the vehicle anyway, with or without Uber.


----------



## Lance A

Undermensch said:


> On the third point: yes, most people are over-attributing depreciation of a vehicle owned for personal use entirely to Uber. I only count the added depreciation from additional miles and months that I will own this car now (the months is probably unnecessary since if I stopped Ubering and sold this car I would immediately replace it with a new car, so Ubering isn't causing me to have a car thus I shouldn't count the time depreciation unless I was planning to sell and buy a car that is even less expensive).


I assume what you are saying is for those who do use actual expenses and thus depreciation at tax time, they are claiming the full depreciation amount instead of the amount times the percentage of miles used for business versus pleasure... ?


----------



## renbutler

I assume he was talking about calculating expenses for the purpose of determining profit margin.


----------



## Lance A

renbutler said:


> I assume he was talking about calculating expenses for the purpose of determining profit margin.


Yeah, I got that. But my understanding of tax law is you calculate the actual depreciation, then subject to a ceiling, and still then cut that by your business versus pleasure use percentage. I think he was saying most people don't get the last part.


----------



## reg barclay

Lance A said:


> Yeah, I got that. But my understanding of tax law is you calculate the actual depreciation, then subject to a ceiling, and still then cut that by your business versus pleasure use percentage. I think he was saying most people don't get the last part.


Let's say you owned a car over 5 years and drove 100k miles and your total cost (incl depreciation, gas, ins, repairs etc) was $10000. Now say 50k of the miles were personal and 50k were for uber, then I'd imagine for tax purposes you'd divide the entire cost equally between personal and business. What we were saying is that for private profit margin purposes, since had you only driven personal miles your cost would have been more than half of the total mentioned, you could subtract what you would have spent had you only driven personal from the total cost and divide whats left by your uber miles to get your per mile uber cost. (You'd obviously need to factor in that had you not done uber you may have kept the car longer, also this obviously only applies if you didn't buy a vehicle just for uber).


----------



## Mars Troll Number 4

Undermensch said:


> Hi All,
> 
> I've finally woken up from how tired I was from the endless "your car costs 54 cents/mile to operate because the IRS deduction is 54 cents/mile" arguments and I wanted to share with all the truthers an example to show them that expenses are most certainly not 54 cents/mile for drivers managing their costs.
> 
> I don't need to show that expenses are 10 cents/mile (they are for me), I only need to show that they are not 54 cents/mile.
> 
> Let's use Enterprise's Uber program as our example, for New Jersey.
> 
> This is the easiest example to use because you pay your rental fee for the week, you pay for your gasoline, and you walk away. There is no endless misunderstanding of depreciation, repair costs, etc. to be had. You pay for the week, that's what it costs. No arguments!
> 
> *Cost Inputs*
> Note: If anyone has better information, please add it in a comment that is free of rants. If you can prove that the cost you have is accurate and that it was mandatory I'll gladly update the inputs and the resulting outputs.
> 
> Base Rental Price
> $210 / week
> 
> Rental / Mile Price
> None - Unlimited Miles
> 
> Taxes
> Let's assume at least sales tax, so $15
> 
> Insurance
> Let's give them $90 / week for this, though it may be included
> 
> Total Rental Cost
> $315 / week
> 
> Gasoline
> Corolla's and other similar cars they may give you average about 30 MPG
> NJ Gas costs $2 / gallon
> That's 6.7 cents/mile for gasoline
> 
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Including Enterprise Markup*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 31.5 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *38.2 cents / mile*
> *29.2% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 24.2 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *30.9 cents / mile*
> *42.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 19.7 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *26.4 cents / mile*
> *48.8% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money*
> Enterprise is a business. They are in this to make money, so you can be assured that they will make money on this in the long term. They are not charging you, all drivers collectively, less than their costs. With unlimited miles they know that they will make money when they average out the miles driven per week per driver. Drivers who drive a lot will make them a little less money, drivers who drive very little will make them a killing, but on average, the costs will work out to what it costs them plus a markup.
> 
> The standard retail markup, after costs of goods (not including capital costs, wages, etc.), is 30%.
> 
> Let's assume that anyone driving less than 1,000 miles a week is smart enough to figure out that renting a car for $315 / week is not going to be worth it. So the range of mileage is probably between 1,000 miles / week and maybe 1,600 miles / week (there are probably some outliers that drive more than that but let's ignore them as they make this appear too inexpensive).
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Assumptions*
> 
> Average Rental Driver's Miles / Week
> 1,300 miles
> 
> Standard Retail Markup After Cost of Goods
> Cost of Goods Includes: tires, shocks, oil, basic repairs, and depreciation
> Cost of Goods Does Not Include: rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital for financing the cars, employee wages, etc
> In other words: This % is the % that Enterprise raises their costs to cover the rent for stores, electricity, advertising, cost of capital, employee wages, etc. (all except cost of capital being a cost we don't have)
> 30%
> 
> *Enterprise Makes Money - Let's Remove Their Costs*
> 
> Total Rental Cost to You: $315 / week
> Remove Tax: -$15 / week
> Removing Enterprises Markup: -$90 / week
> Cost to Enterprise of the Car: $210 / week
> *Range of Total Costs / Mile - Enterprise Markup Removed*
> 
> 1,000 miles / week
> Rental: 21 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: 2*7.7 cents / mile*
> *48.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> 1,300 miles / week
> Rental: 16.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *22.8 cents / mile*
> *57.7% lower* than 54 cents / mile!!
> 
> 1,600 miles / week
> Rental: 13.1 cents / mile
> Gas: 6.7 cents / mile
> Total: *19.8 cents / mile*
> *63.3% lower* than 54 cents / mile!
> 
> *Applying this to My Driving*
> I drove 1,300 miles last week and took home $932 after tolls, with 40 hours of activity outside of my home.
> 
> If I'd used an Enterprise car, with their markup included, I would've had $529 left after the rental and gasoline.
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Included
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $315 = $617
> Take Home After Gasoline: $617 - 1300 * $0.067 = $529
> Per Mile Earnings: 40.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$13.22 / hour*
> Note: Unfortunately, ALL of that would be taxable earnings as you can no longer claim 54 cents / mile expenses for your own car. But this number can be compared to a wage that any other job offered to pay you, less an extra 7% for the self employment tax that you'd pay.
> 
> 
> Rental Car - Enterprise Markup Removed
> Take Home After Rental: $932 - $210 = $722
> Take Home After Gasoline: $722 - 1300 * $0.067 = $634.9
> Per Mile Earnings: 48.7 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$15.87 / hour*
> 
> Driving My Car
> My car is a 2008, not a 2015, depreciation is non-existent compared to a new car
> My maintenance + gasoline costs: 10 cents / mile
> Take Home After My Costs: $932 - 1300 * $0.10 = $802
> Per Mile Earnings: 61.6 cents / mile
> Per Hour Earnings: *$20.05 / hour*
> Note: $702 of the $932 are shielded from taxes due to the 54 cents / mile standard IRS deduction. This means I own taxes on only $230, so I owe about $60 in taxes, meaning I get to keep about $18 / hour of these earnings
> 
> 
> *Conclusions*
> No, I don't love Uber and I'm not Travis' brother, etc. etc.
> 
> What you can see above is that even driving a car provided by Enterprise (aka "another evil company trying to steal all your money"), you can still make $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile driving for Uber.
> 
> That $13 / hour & 40 cents / mile rate is under the absolute worst conditions: allowing another company to profit from your driving their 2015 or newer car.
> 
> When you control your costs (2008 Prius) you can push your earnings up to $20 / hour & 61.6 cents / mile and you can shield almost all of it from income taxes due to the overly generous standard IRS mileage deduction.
> 
> If your car costs you 54 cents / mile, you are doing something wrong.


Can i steal this from you?

What happens if we apply this to our Local Uber Rate (Orlando), and we hit the following.... Oh and lets include a 50% paid milage ratio...

65c per mile+ 11c per minute
-25% commissionto uber

48.75c per mile
8c per minute

38.2c per mile to 26c per mile in expenses...

Sooo 
100 paid miles is $48.75c
200 total miles costs $76.40-$52
8c per minute cannot exceed $4.80 per hour

So using your rock bottom math, it's impossible for me to make money driving X in our market.

Pray your rates don't end up at rock bottom like Orlando rates are. (Oh and it never surges anymore)


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## Fireguy50

This thread is still going?  LOL


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## ChortlingCrison

As long as it doesn't get boring, I say keep it going.


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## dirtylee

Undermensch makes a solid case.

I would recommend renting if you don't have liquid cash/credit {to cover costly repairs & downtime} vs driving a 2008 car you own.
Older cars have a higher cpm maintenance wise vs when new. 
If you drive 1.5 - 2k miles a week, seriously consider selling that vehicle before something really breaks.


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## Euius

dirtylee said:


> .
> If you drive 1.5 - 2k miles a week, seriously consider selling that vehicle before something really breaks.


Who the hell drives that much?

If I drove 60 hours a week I might get 1000 miles in that week.


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## Wyelie

Good lord. The only thing this thread is missing is someone calling the OP a racist.

That's right, I'm trollin'.

On to the point. I think the only intent of the OP was to show that the IRS standard deduction of $.54 is a rather large and generous number and that most drivers aren't spending that much per mile on their own vehicles. AND in the rare chance that they are, perhaps they should _consider_ renting. Anything being debated in the comments outside that is surely outside the scope of the OP's post.

I'm don't have the math skills the OP has but perhaps my contribution to this thread can be in the form of an analogy:

When I travel during the week for my job, my company puts me up in a hotel each night. During the day, they give $25 to spend on food. We call this per diem. They really don't care what I spend it on. Dine in, drive thru, sit down with a waiter, it doesn't matter. If I spend $10 of the $25 that day and pocket the remaining $15, my company really doesn't care. They definitely don't want the $15 back. I can also buy an expensive $35 lobster and steak dinner using their $25 and spending an additional $10 of my own money. However, in that case I would be operating at a loss of $10 that day.

Using this analogy, I think the OP's suggestion with his post is for you to spend only $3 of it on the McDonald's dollar menu and to pocket the remaining $22. And to stop spreading the rumor that it costs $25 a day to eat.


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## Xylphan

Wyelie said:


> Good lord. The only thing this thread is missing is someone calling the OP a racist.
> 
> That's right, I'm trollin'.
> 
> On to the point. I think the only intent of the OP was to show that the IRS standard deduction of $.54 is a rather large and generous number and that most drivers aren't spending that much per mile on their own vehicles. AND in the rare chance that they are, perhaps they should _consider_ renting. Anything being debated in the comments outside that is surely outside the scope of the OP's post.
> 
> I'm don't have the math skills the OP has but perhaps my contribution to this thread can be in the form of an analogy:
> 
> When I travel during the week for my job, my company puts me up in a hotel each night. During the day, they give $25 to spend on food. We call this per diem. They really don't care what I spend it on. Dine in, drive thru, sit down with a waiter, it doesn't matter. If I spend $10 of the $25 that day and pocket the remaining $15, my company really doesn't care. They definitely don't want the $15 back. I can also buy an expensive $35 lobster and steak dinner using their $25 and spending an additional $10 of my own money. However, in that case I would be operating at a loss of $10 that day.
> 
> Using this analogy, I think the OP's suggestion with his post is for you to spend only $3 of it on the McDonald's dollar menu and to pocket the remaining $22. And to stop spreading the rumor that it costs $25 a day to eat.


You're analogy is incorrect.

First, you don't get any money back. Ever. It's a tax deduction, not a credit. You don't "pocket" anything. You just pay less taxes.

Second, you have to properly account for ALL expenses which the vast majority of drivers don't do or even know how to do. That's why it's important to understand at least basic business accounting and understand the tax laws regarding business and self-employment. Many a driver get unhappy surprises come tax time because they mistakenly believe that their revenue is profit.

Third, the cost per mile calculation includes numerous factors that the OP and many others don't bother including. Either that or the wave their hands and say "I'd pay that anyway so it doesn't count!". Sorry, but the IRS disagrees and if you fudge numbers then you better be ready for an audit.

Fourth, the number is an average. An average means for some it will be too high, others too low, but for many it will end up being about right. The OP was trying to take his singular case (and not a very well constructed one) and extrapolate to all vehicles and scenarios. That's not even remotely correct.

My advice is if you really want to figure out your numbers then go spend some time with a business accountant or a tax professional who deals with independent contracting/self-employment. They're going to be a whole hell of a lot more accurate than the OP. And considering the potential consequences for getting it wrong (a nice audit, tax penalties, etc.) it would definitely be worth the money to make sure you've got everything in line. If you're doing Uber full time, you may want to do that ASAP, as you may be on the hook for quarterly estimated payments (you can get penalized if you don't pay them).


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## Older Chauffeur

If you are paying less in taxes, you are "pocketing" more of what you earned, right?


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## renbutler

Xylphan said:


> You're analogy is incorrect.
> 
> First, you don't get any money back. Ever. It's a tax deduction, not a credit. You don't "pocket" anything. You just pay less taxes.
> 
> Second, you have to properly account for ALL expenses which the vast majority of drivers don't do or even know how to do. That's why it's important to understand at least basic business accounting and understand the tax laws regarding business and self-employment. Many a driver get unhappy surprises come tax time because they mistakenly believe that their revenue is profit.
> 
> Third, the cost per mile calculation includes numerous factors that the OP and many others don't bother including. Either that or the wave their hands and say "I'd pay that anyway so it doesn't count!". Sorry, but the IRS disagrees and if you fudge numbers then you better be ready for an audit.
> 
> Fourth, the number is an average. An average means for some it will be too high, others too low, but for many it will end up being about right. The OP was trying to take his singular case (and not a very well constructed one) and extrapolate to all vehicles and scenarios. That's not even remotely correct.
> 
> My advice is if you really want to figure out your numbers then go spend some time with a business accountant or a tax professional who deals with independent contracting/self-employment. They're going to be a whole hell of a lot more accurate than the OP. And considering the potential consequences for getting it wrong (a nice audit, tax penalties, etc.) it would definitely be worth the money to make sure you've got everything in line. If you're doing Uber full time, you may want to do that ASAP, as you may be on the hook for quarterly estimated payments (you can get penalized if you don't pay them).


Sorry, but there are some very intelligent, math-oriented business types here who have crunched all the numbers, and the OP is spot on:

It's _very easy_ to beat the IRS business mileage rate. And nobody should even _consider_ driving UberX if they can't.

Contrary to what you said, he is not "extrapolating to all vehicles and scenarios." In fact, he's doing the opposite -- calling out those who wrongly try to apply .54/mile to _everybody's _real-world expenses.


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## Xylphan

renbutler said:


> Sorry, but there are some very intelligent, math-oriented business types here who have crunched all the numbers, and the OP is spot on:


A number of the so-called "math types" I've seen on here most often ignore things like basic business accounting. The smart people are the ones who actually do long term business planning, are familiar with the tax laws and regulations, so on and so forth. They know how expenses affect the bottom line a year out, and not just this week's revenue. Those people are few and far between, and for the most part either reside in areas where driving is still lucrative or have hung up their keys because it no longer makes sense to drive.



renbutler said:


> It's _very easy_ to beat the IRS business mileage rate. And nobody should even _consider_ driving UberX if they can't.


Not for the average driver it isn't. The auto industry and various organizations calculate cost of ownership for vehicles (usually expressed as cost per mile), and they explain data and the methods they use. That's a hell of a lot more convincing than some random internet poster. Do you honestly think the industry and organizations want their average costs to be high? Of course not. Do you think the IRS wants to set the deduction rate so high that they collect no taxes? Again, of course not.

The average Uber driver puts a lot more wear and tear on their vehicles which affects various aspects of the cost per mile calculation. You can't drive your car more and have it cost less. Put enough miles on and you can effectively lower the cost per mile, but that in no way implies you've lowered your costs.



renbutler said:


> Contrary to what you said, he is not "extrapolating to all vehicles and scenarios." In fact, he's doing the opposite -- calling out those who wrongly try to apply .54/mile to _everybody's _real-world expenses.


AVERAGE. AVERAGE. AVERAGE. This is a basic mathematical concept. Average does not equal everyone. How many times does it need to be repeated? Some will be higher. Some will be lower. Most will be somewhere near the middle. But barring a detailed analysis of a person's situation, historical driving habits, etc. the average is the best bet for establishing a long term business plan. It's better to end up being a little high on your expense estimation than to be low.

There's a big difference between thinking you're beating the cost per mile and knowing your beating it. Again, the vast majority of drivers don't even track expenses correctly so any claims of doing so should be taken with a large grain of salt.


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## renbutler

You keep repeating the same things that have already been addressed. The problem is that you can't fathom the thought that there could be something wrong with what you're saying, as it applies to Uber, no matter how many times it's explained to you.

You've attempted to make your point. We've heard it, and we have our reasons to disagree with it. You now have to accept that you're not persuasive or convincing.

You think we're wrong, and you'll just have to live with our being "wrong" and move on.


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## Euius

First, *The standard mileage deduction does not and is not intended to compensate for costs associated with owning the vehicle, only for driving the miles. *The standard mileage deduction applies only to gas, depreciation, and maintenance. For Uber drivers and other businesses, costs outside those three categories can still be deducted as a line item.

Second, the Total Cost of Ownership is not applicable to Uber. You own the car already, and you will pay those costs anyways.

Third, when the Total Cost of Ownership is expressed per mile it is measured by assuming you drive 13,000 miles a year. That's the average personal vehicle usage. Owners who drive less don't save money as most costs are flat and based on time. The TCO is a guideline, and not to be used for actual accounting purposes. Trying to force a per time cost into a per mile accounting just doesn't work.

Fourth, the 54 cent standard mileage deduction is NOT an average. As it is intended to *fully compensate *for mileage expenses on a personal vehicles, it's based on SUVs and other gas guzzlers. It was lowered for 2016 because SUVs are getting cheaper.

Only the UberXL and UberSuv crowd should be coming anywhere near 54 cents.

Did you know those guys riding around on electric scooters delivering for UberEats can also deduct 54 cents a mile?


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## renbutler

Euius said:


> Second, the Total Cost of Ownership is not applicable to Uber. You own the car already, and you will pay those costs anyways.


I liked the post, but I would add that this is true for _most_ ride-sharing drivers. Some do buy a car just for Ubering, which means the entire ownership/mileage costs should be factored in.

Otherwise, great post.


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## Euius

renbutler said:


> I liked the post, but I would add that this is true for _most_ ride-sharing drivers. Some do buy a car just for Ubering, which means the entire ownership/mileage costs should be factored in.
> 
> Otherwise, great post.


Even then, and it's sure to be a minuscule minority, they have the car available. When they start driving their spouse to work and get groceries instead of riding a bus, they've accepted the cost of ownership as a personal expense

That being said, it's the ability to leverage a personal car thats already owned that makes uber reasonable. If you want a business car you can't do anything else with, you may as well drive a taxi


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## Brian G.

So if your renting a car from enterprise your not allowed to use the mileage as a deduction on your taxes? Damn that sucks.


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## BostonBarry

True. But you can deduct any rental fees, washes, etc. You can find non-vehicle deductions too. And of course you have the benefit of not having to pay for maintenance.


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## Brian G.

So if you are paying $210 per week on a consistent basis and have fair to good credit why rent a frigging car for over 10k a year? I rather buy and use all my mileage for a deduction towards my earn incomel, plus your car payment will be less then half your rental payments. Maintenance on your new vechicle shouldn't be a huge expense year to year.


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## Euius

Brian G. said:


> So if your renting a car from enterprise your not allowed to use the mileage as a deduction on your taxes? Damn that sucks.


No, but if you're leasing you can.

Specifically: You can take the deduction when using the Uber XChange lease. That's why for full time high mileage drivers it can be the _best option_, economically. (But if you take the standard deduction, you cannot also take the $160/week cost for the lease. Either/or. Mileage is the better choice.)



> So if you are paying $210 per week on a consistent basis and have fair to good credit why rent a frigging car for over 10k a year?


You wouldn't, you shouldn't, and the rental program isn't designed or advertised for such usage anyways.


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## Brian G.

I think a lot of drivers for rideshare are either dumb or have bad credit. Why lease or rent in the long haul when you can own.


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## Xylphan

renbutler said:


> You keep repeating the same things that have already been addressed. The problem is that you can't fathom the thought that there could be something wrong with what you're saying, as it applies to Uber, no matter how many times it's explained to you.


That's because so far there haven't been any explanations that make financial sense. You don't get to make shit up just because you think it sounds good. Businesses don't operate on magical math, nor does the IRS tax you on what YOU think is relevant.



renbutler said:


> You've attempted to make your point. We've heard it, and we have our reasons to disagree with it. You now have to accept that you're not persuasive or convincing.


In general, Americans are bad at math and worse at taxes.

Persuasive? Convincing? Dear boy, why on Earth do you think I'm trying to convince you (and others like you) of anything? That would be a complete and utter waste of time. You've made it quite obvious that there's no way to change your mind from the very beginning so what would be the point?

My posts are merely for pointing out and countering some of the misguided reasoning here. People should research and come to their own conclusions based on LEGITIMATE sources of information. They should get a good book on business accounting practices, and implement those practices. They should familiarize themselves with the tax laws surrounding self-employment and how to deal with revenue, income, etc. (especially if they also have a regular job).



renbutler said:


> You think we're wrong, and you'll just have to live with our being "wrong" and move on.


I'm not going to "move on" and allow the Uber cheer-leading squad continue to give out poor/biased/anecdotal information to potential new drivers reading this forum. Uber already does a good enough job with misleading drivers as it is. I will continue to encourage them to properly research the subject, go to authoritative sources of information, educate themselves into how to properly manage being an independent contractor, etc. and have them draw their own conclusions.


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## renbutler

You are wasting your time. Nobody is buying what you're selling.

There are kernels of truth to what you're saying, but you're making the fatal error of trying to apply _your _situation to everybody else's. To make it worse, you're talking down at everybody in the process.

People here to too smart not to see through it. It has to do with knowing _our_ situation, not with BS "cheer-leading." It works for some, not for others. If you couldn't make it work, that's your failure, not ours.

MOVE. ON.


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## renbutler

Sweet, I found the Ignore button. First time I've ever had to use it in over a year here.


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## Xylphan

renbutler said:


> You are wasting your time. Nobody is buying what you're selling.


I'm not "selling" anything. I'm informing people not to listen to the anecdotal nonsense here and use real accounting methods and substantiated numbers when calculating income. I certainly don't profit from people properly accounting for expenses and following tax laws.



renbutler said:


> There are kernels of truth to what you're saying, but you're making the fatal error of trying to apply _your _situation to everybody else's.


What are you talking about? I don't have a "situation" I'm applying to everyone. The $0.54/$0.58 per mile is a national average that includes numerous factors that a large number of people don't bother including when trying to figure out actual costs.

The thing is, if you use the national average and project your expenses based on that what happens if your expenses are less? Nothing. You wind up with more money in your bank account. If you use some low balled number based on what some random guy on the internet says and it turns out your actual expenses were closer to the national average then what happens? Well you better hope you have enough in your bank account to cover it.

Now if you have specific information for your specific situation, keep meticulous records, know what your doing in regards to expense tracking, estimate effective taxes, etc. and it turns out to be less than the average then pat yourself on the back. But I can guarantee you that people who go to such measures make up a tiny percentage of the Uber community. Using the national average is the quick and dirty way for people who are not familiar with running their own business to make income projections.



renbutler said:


> To make it worse, you're talking down at everybody in the process.


Hardly.



renbutler said:


> People here to too smart not to see through it. It has to do with knowing _our_ situation, not with BS "cheer-leading."


O RLY? What was the title of this thread again? What was the premise of the OP?



renbutler said:


> It works for some, not for others. If you couldn't make it work, that's your failure, not ours.


I didn't make it work because I was smart enough not to bother. I actually researched driving for Uber before attempting to try it. You know, what you're supposed to do before jumping into any such venture. I researched the tax laws. I researched driving rates in my area. I researched costs, expenses, so on and so forth.

I then took all that research and created a model. I fed that model with different scenarios (number of rides, times, miles, etc.). That gave me a range of expected profit. The average ended up being $1.13 less than minimum wage in my area. (It actually ends up much worse if I allow for random rate cuts/fee increases but that isn't really valid.)

Conclusion: Not worth it.

This was a business analysis. By using available data and a few simple methods I determined that this particular business venture was not really a productive use of time and resources for me. Failure, as you put it, would have been ignoring those results and going ahead and doing it anyway.



renbutler said:


> MOVE. ON.


After you.


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## jeanocelot

UbieWarrior said:


> Most people are in the 10% tax bracket so 54c mile gross deduction is only 5.4c net.
> 
> 30miles then is only $1.62.
> 
> That is less than the price for gallon of gas.


10% federal income tax, plus 15.3% FICA (self-employed pay both employer & employee). And if health coverage is being purchased on the ACA Exchange, that's worth something as well as an implicit tax rate because of the loss of the premium tax credit. And if on Medicaid, then perhaps SNAP (i.e., food stamps) is being received, and that has a 30% implicit tax rate.


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## the rebel

jeanocelot said:


> 10% federal income tax, plus 15.3% FICA (self-employed pay both employer & employee). And if health coverage is being purchased on the ACA Exchange, that's worth something as well as an implicit tax rate because of the loss of the premium tax credit. And if on Medicaid, then perhaps SNAP (i.e., food stamps) is being received, and that has a 30% implicit tax rate.


You are missing the earned income tax credit, child tax credit. If people do the math they realize that for a family of 4 making $36K a year not only does not pay taxes, they get food stamps, rental help, and a nice big refund for child tax credit and Earned Income credit, putting them basically at the same level for life style as those making around $65,000 a year, while those making $15,000 a year get less Earned Income credit, less child tax credit, and the rest of the benefits stay basically the same. If someone knows how to play the system that 15.3 FICA tax means very little.


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## renbutler

Yes, that's called a _negative_ tax liability, amounting to little more than income redistribution.

What Mitt Romney might have been political suicide, but that doesn't mean he was incorrect.


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## Peanut hello

Why rent?? and you can buy a nice 2016 vehicule , pay for it and the car is yours. then 2 more years sell it and buy another one , and just drive....


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## renbutler

Peanut hello said:


> Why rent?? and you can buy a nice 2016 vehicule , pay for it and the car is yours. then 2 more years sell it and buy another one , and just drive....


I hope that's a joke. Renting and buying new are both horrible ideas.


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## Another Uber Driver

renbutler said:


> I hope that's a joke. Renting and buying new are both horrible ideas.


If you do not rent or you do not buy, what do you do? Not everyone on these Boards can use his friend's or parents' vehicle.


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## renbutler

Another Uber Driver said:


> If you do not rent or you do not buy, what do you do? Not everyone on these Boards can use his friend's or parents' vehicle.


I said "buying _new_" is a bad idea. Unless you have so much money you can buy it for cash and brush off the $5k depreciation hit the moment you drive off the lot.

Buy moderately used vehicles, for cash.


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## Peanut hello

renbutler said:


> I hope that's a joke. Renting and buying new are both horrible ideas.


It cost money to buy a car. but how can you make money with low rate fare , something doesn't add up.I dont know how you can make a living out of it....


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## renbutler

Peanut hello said:


> It cost money to buy a car. but how can you make money with low rate fare , something doesn't add up.I dont know how you can make a living out of it....


The best-case scenario for ride-sharing profitability is to use a vehicle that you already need for other purposes, and drive Uber/Lyft only at busy times (surges) or higher levels (XL, Select, etc.).

I did not have to buy a vehicle to drive for Uber -- we already have two older vehicles for commuting and family transportation. I simply have a few additional ride-sharing costs, such as gas, maintenance, and depreciation. That is the baseline by which I measure profitability.


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## Peanut hello

renbutler said:


> The best-case scenario for ride-sharing profitability is to use a vehicle that you already need for other purposes, and drive Uber/Lyft only at busy times (surges) or higher levels (XL, Select, etc.).
> 
> I did not have to buy a vehicle to drive for Uber -- we already have two older vehicles for commuting and family transportation. I simply have a few additional ride-sharing costs, such as gas, maintenance, and depreciation. That is the baseline by which I measure profitability.


Alot of grocery runs,and you know they are short runs.it is hard to make it.


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