# Experience ubering with a LEAF



## Ignatowski (Mar 23, 2019)

I gave 1600 rides with a 2017 Nissan Leaf (30 kwhr). I thought I'd pass on a few things I learned.


DC Fast Charging usually didn't work out. My electricity at home costs $0.085/kwhr. Even with free fast-charging, I only saved $3.50/hr in electricity by sitting in a parking lot... not worth it.
Home charging added 25 miles of range for every hour spent charging. For me, that meant that I needed about 1 hour of charging at home per 1 hour of Uber driving.

To uber with an EV, if you want to charge at home, then you need a schedule with roughly equal hours driving and charging. My schedule was:

overnight, the car charges to 100% full
drive AM rush hour (I like 7:00-9:30). Quit when battery gets down to 15% or so, or when business gets slow. Go home and plug in.
drive 2-4pm (early rush hour... I hate driving 4pm-6pm gridlock!), go home and plug-in. Battery will be full by 6pm.
drive dinner hours (6:30-9pm).
If you need to drive bar hours, go get a fast-charge, then do 3 more hours driving (and take a nap the next day between 10am and 2pm)

Most days, I drove 7 to 8 hours, and was still able to get the kids up (6:30am) and out (7am), was home when they got off the bus (4pm) and dinner, and bed-time (9:30pm).

Some thoughts:

Driving sessions were limited to about 3 hours for my 30kwhr battery (newer EVs have bigger batteries and could go longer). You need to plan when you will drive and when you will charge. If you spend 12 hours plugged-in at home, then you could drive 12 hours per day.
Cost for fuel was about $2.50 per 100 miles. If I had a gas car that got 35mpg at $2.50/gal, 100 miles would cost $7.14. I probably saved about $1.16 per hour versus buying gas (driving 200 miles per 8-hour day).
Freeway isn't so good for EV uber: if I did 5am airport runs, I could give 3 or 4 rides (45 paid miles + 45 minutes + dead-head) over 90 minutes, then be out of battery by 6:30am. When I tried it, it paid well per hour, but I had to quit too early and go home and charge. If I had a newer EV with 200-mile range, airport runs would have been OK
But if I gave rides on surface streets from 6:30-9:30, then I could get 75 paid miles + 150 paid minutes. Electric cars are really efficient at stop-and-go driving. I made more money before I had to quit and go home and charge.
So the goal each shift was "how much money can I make driving less than 100 miles", which can make you decide to drive different places and times. Freeways = bad, Surface streets and 30mph = good (but traffic jams are still bad).
If I gave a ride on the freeway, I usually tried to drive slightly slower than prevailing traffic.
No oil changes. No transmission. No engine wear. Front tires went nearly bald in 30k :smiles: . The battery degraded about 3% over 30k miles, which is normal. I had no maintenance issues.
I'm sure I could have made more money with a hybrid gas car. But if you have an electric car, then yes, you can uber with it.


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## NauticalWheeler (Jun 15, 2019)

Bu-dump-a-dump-BUMP!!!


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## RideshareUSA (Feb 7, 2019)

Ignatowski said:


> I gave 1600 rides with a 2017 Nissan Leaf (30 kwhr). I thought I'd pass on a few things I learned.
> 
> 
> DC Fast Charging usually didn't work out. My electricity at home costs $0.085/kwhr. Even with free fast-charging, I only saved $3.50/hr in electricity by sitting in a parking lot... not worth it.
> ...


Maximize those profits. Love it!


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## OldBay (Apr 1, 2019)

Ignatowski said:


> I gave 1600 rides with a 2017 Nissan Leaf (30 kwhr). I thought I'd pass on a few things I learned.
> 
> 
> DC Fast Charging usually didn't work out. My electricity at home costs $0.085/kwhr. Even with free fast-charging, I only saved $3.50/hr in electricity by sitting in a parking lot... not worth it.
> ...


I read this and my takeaway was that in most markets, a plug-in is a non-starter for FT rideshare.

What really bumps up earnings is on busy days when you are driving all over creation, lining up trips, putting tons of miles. When the pings are flowing, you can't stop, you have to keep driving when the money is coming in. Having the spectre of needing to plug-in, and/or being stranded away from home would seriously cut into earnings.

This was a 2017 car. Wow, you put 50K miles on an almost new car. When you factor depreciation, an old gas guzzler would have earned you more.

Thanks for sharing. I'm not faulting you for driving the Volt; we drive what we have, but I hope your experience steers people away from it.


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## Dekero (Sep 24, 2019)

Ignatowski said:


> I gave 1600 rides with a 2017 Nissan Leaf (30 kwhr). I thought I'd pass on a few things I learned.
> 
> 
> DC Fast Charging usually didn't work out. My electricity at home costs $0.085/kwhr. Even with free fast-charging, I only saved $3.50/hr in electricity by sitting in a parking lot... not worth it.
> ...


Wow I don't think I could do it .. entirely too little range on a Leaf to be of much benefit... Assuming you drove to a preferred ping pickup location, and then took the first ping... Your 15-20% down on voltage before your first passenger gets in.. and as for the last passenger... You do not know where he is going (unless pro...and that's another story altogether) so he gets in and you have 40 miles of range left .. he's going 32, your not getting home anytime soon..

Nope couldn't do it...


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## waldowainthrop (Oct 25, 2019)

I decided against an electric car as a near future car because of the highway issue. In a city like DC that has a dense core, electric seems great, but I live in the land of highways where range and speed are pretty important. Maybe some day a decade from now.


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## TomTheAnt (Jan 1, 2019)

Calling @theinca. :whistling: He also has experience driving a Leaf and seemed to be doing pretty well with it.


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## Disgusted Driver (Jan 9, 2015)

Totally with @OldBay . The trick to making money in this gig is to keep going when it's busy/surging but the limitations that plugging in impose don't allow for that. My best days have been when I end up driving 10 or 12 hours and gross $35 to 40 an hour. If I have to stop after 3 then I'm losing a lot when it's crazy out.When it's slow, I'm not driving with electric or otherwise.


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## Elmo Burrito (Feb 3, 2017)

Sounds like you got it down for you but forgot to mention anything about how these ev's lose range when it's cold(>32°) around 20% and more if you use climate control (even sparingly). Also battery replacement costs unless you are jus gonna throw it away when it's time to change out l-ion are quite expensive around 30K for Tesla 60D and no ev mfg. warranties the l-ion for more than 100K/5years. The only way I'll even consider an ev for rideshare is for part time only.


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## losiglow (Dec 4, 2018)

I think the only EV I'd Uber with is a Model 3. Range of >300 miles. 

However, they're too expensive to consider RS because depreciation would kick you in the nuts.


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## OldBay (Apr 1, 2019)

losiglow said:


> I think the only EV I'd Uber with is a Model 3. Range of >300 miles.
> 
> However, they're too expensive to consider RS because depreciation would kick you in the nuts.


A passenger told me that the only way to sell a Tesla is back to Tesla... at a huge loss?

Is this true? If so, it means that Tesla is artificially keeping up the prices by removing used cars from circulation.


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## VanGuy (Feb 15, 2019)

Nope, lots of Teslas on craigslist here.


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## theinca (Mar 18, 2019)

I drove a 24kwh 2014 leaf in the Dallas/Fort Worth with only 9 bars for almost 2 years. As the op stated I was also limited to drive 3 to 5 hours at a time. I only did pickup at a max 1.5 miles away. I knew my market really well so I would stage myself in areas that I knew typically were short rides. If I did get a long ride I didn’t want to take I would tell them I was low on juice and we would have to charge halfway. Most people would cancel. I typically would only drive during surge hours. My strategy with the leaf was to drive as little miles as possible during surge.This was my bread and butter and my gross dollar per mile was $2.23. A few things that I would do to maximize my miles was hypermiling, running a higher tire pressure, and some light aero mods. I also had a 220 charger at home would get my back to 100% in 3.5 hours. If my leaf hadn’t been killed by a suburban I would have been swapping out the battery pack with a 40kwh pack from a crashed new leaf. Currently I am semi retired from anting as I have gainful employment in my chosen career field but I may buy another 1st gen leaf for my 45 mi commute as the leaf was pretty cheap to operate compared to a gas car.


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## Damn Boy (Jan 28, 2019)

Ignatowski said:


> I gave 1600 rides with a 2017 Nissan Leaf (30 kwhr). I thought I'd pass on a few things I learned.
> 
> 
> DC Fast Charging usually didn't work out. My electricity at home costs $0.085/kwhr. Even with free fast-charging, I only saved $3.50/hr in electricity by sitting in a parking lot... not worth it.
> ...


EVs are good for rideshare because the operational costs are too low and less variables--don't have to deal with fluctuating gas prices.


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## losiglow (Dec 4, 2018)

VanGuy said:


> Nope, lots of Teslas on craigslist here.


Yep, we've got a bunch for sale here. The cheapest are early model S's, which are still about $30K.


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## mrpjfresh (Aug 16, 2016)

I do enjoy reading stuff like this to learn about how others do this crazy thing called rideshare very differently than I. I mean, yea, we know you can buy a beater for half the cost of a Leaf's _battery_ and gross like 10x the initial cost in a year (assuming no catastrophic repairs necessary). It's honestly what pax deserve at this price point. But it is interesting reading about the road less traveled even if it's not one I'd probably ever take. Thanks for sharing!


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