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Uber Is Now Cheaper Than a New York City Taxi
redletterdave writes Uber announced in a blog post on Monday it would cut the prices of its UberX service in New York City by 20% — but it's only for a limited time. Uber says this makes it cheaper to use UberX than taking a taxi. Consumers like Uber's aggressive pricing strategy but competitors — and some of its own drivers — are not as happy. UberX, Uber’s cheaper service usually hosted by regular people driving basic sedans rather than fancy black cars, also cut its rates by 25% last week in the Bay Area, including San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. As a result of that announcement, Uber said its service was effectively “45% cheaper than a taxi.”
The amount of insurance carried by Uber drivers is also probably much less than NY taxis.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Every other city I have used it in, UberX was at a fair discount to a regular taxi...after all, why would you hop a ride in some random person's car (whom you will have to provide with directions because they don't know the city) if it costs more than an actual taxi service? The only thing more expensive was the black car (limo) service.
Bottles.
UberX has always been substantially cheaper than taxis.
Enjoy using your million-dollar taxi medallion as a coaster from now on.
1. Deregulation;
2. Big newcomer with huge financial backing undercuts established companies;
3. Everyone flocks to newcomer;
4. Established companies reduce routes or go bankrupt;
5. Newcomer uses new position to engage in gradual programme of regulatory capture;
6. Newcomer boosts prices way above previous companies;
7. Newcomer shuts down less profitable routes, because see 5.
Bus services here used to be comprehensive and cheap. Now all the short routes are dominated by one company.
I like the part where you think a medallion prevents any of that.
and if an accident occurs will uber get to use fine to get out having to pay up like a real taxi?
It's pretty easy to undercut taxis when you are subsidized by venture capital (and therefore ordinary people's retirement funds etc.) and don't have to obey any of the same regulations.
If you think that the average taxi driver is some how morally superior to 'random strangers'(who have to pass criminal and background checks)....I know you haven't been in many cabs.
UberX in NYC is somewhat different from UberX in most markets. In NYC, UberX uses licensed livery cars and drivers (who have livery licenses, commercial insurance, etc), the same as Uber Black, etc., and the standard car service companies. The only difference between UberX and Uber Black in NYC is that UberX will have less nice cars (typically Camrys vs. Town Cars).
This is very different from UberX in SF, LA, etc., where it's pretty much "got a car? got a license? congrats, you're an UberX driver!"
I'm certain our first story about Uber accepting Bitcoin will shake things up quite a bit.
I welecome the change. Bitcoin makes othewise smart people stupid. The arguements with uber are a thousand times more palatible.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
It's easy to undercut the competition when they adhere to regulations and you don't.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I welecome the change. Bitcoin makes othewise smart people stupid. The arguements with uber are a thousand times more palatible.
Well, some of them are.
But you have to admit, a lot of the arguments are Bitcoin-level stupid.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
This is the only reason I use Uber (though I push it a notch and use Uber Black, even though its pretty expensive).
When I need to take a cab at 4 AM to go to the middle of nowhere (I don't have a car, as I only need this like twice a year or something, not worth it), hailing a shady dirty taxi who'll bitch and moan about me asking to go somewhere unprofitable isn't exactly my preference.
Uber (Black) has been doing quite nicely. Up the standard of normal taxis, even if you have to double the price, and I'll happily use them again.
No, they will simply refuse to pay for any injuries or damages. Remember, you agreed to indemnify Uber from all liability as part of the EULA you agreed to by using Uber.
Yep. I'm so stupid I'm about to retire in my forties. With coins I bought less than 2 years ago. What an idiot I've been.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
If you mean anti-Bitcoin stupid, then yeah, I agree with you.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
If you think that this is an important characteristic for you use a normal taxi and do not use Uber. People should decide the insurances they want, not you or the government.
One thing that you get from taxis that you don't get from Uber (or clones) is an assurance that the rates will be metered fairly.
I use Uber Black whenever its available because I trust the company and I enjoy the product. That doesn't mean that I don't acknowledge the need for some regulation in the taxi market. We tried going all gypsy before and it didn't work very well - hell, DC was annoying until just a few years ago with random pricing.
Uber could choose to work with the cities and go in offering full (anonymous, 1 week delayed) logs of all trips with pricing information. Any city inspector could take a trip and then compare his calculations to his receipt and, when it appeared publicly, the log records. There are many things they could do in fact if they weren't intent on being assholes and pretending that all regulations were dumb.
Hell, pre-negotiated pricing through the app with an add-on congestion charge would also work around many of the complaints.
The worst part about this is that this weird obsession with the Lyft market may well bring down the wonderful, "traditional" Uber Black service. And that would be a shame.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
When will we have Uber for airplanes? There are many private pilots who would love to make some money by flying paying passengers yet FAA requires some pesky commercial pilot license. How can we "Uber" that license requirement?
There are so many rules that I would like to "Uber"...
You do realize there may be people injured in an accident who are not customers of Uber, right?
Where's the posting which shows that Uber, which is bank-rolled against the small time (typically immigrant) taxi owner, is now coupled with ALEC ("the notoriously evil American Legislative Exchange Council" aka Koch brothers)?: http://slog.thestranger.com/sl...
Either way.
As in most things, there are moronic arguments on both sides of the Bitcoin/Uber debates.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The FAA has some very clear and very strict laws about that. A private pilot can not charge for transporting passengers. The on;y exception to this is that a passenger can pay for, at most, their share of the cost of expenses such as gas. That means if a private pilot transports two other people, each can pay for up to 1/3 of the costs for gas and such but the pilot must pay for his own share. And those costs absolutely can not include things like annual or hourly maintenance costs. If you luck out and find a pilot already making the same trip (I did once) you can get a great deal and help defer some of his costs. But you're not going to see private pilots legally offering their services on any wide spread basis.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Never priced a medallion I guess. They don't own the taxis.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Well, I made $90 billion investing in Bernie Madolff related investments. I'm not the stupid one.
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Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I like the part where it's trivially easy to troll the Aspergers nerds of Slashdot.
Because we all know that no one on the Internet lies.
So how will this affect Cash Cab? Will Ben Bailey now have to put a pink mustache on the front of his vehicle? Will people have to use an iOS app to get a ride? Will people be required to fist-bump Ben Bailey as they enter the car?
I guess those people won't have indemnified Uber then?
People should decide
And is democracy or the size of your wallet a better approximation of "people", please?
When I need to take a cab at 4 AM to go to the middle of nowhere (I don't have a car, as I only need this like twice a year or something, not worth it), hailing a shady dirty taxi who'll bitch and moan about me asking to go somewhere unprofitable isn't exactly my preference.
I will take that recommendation, though I hear Uber SUV can fit more bodies in the rear. I wonder if heading over to Patterson incurs surge pricing? Will the driver help you unload your "luggage"?
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
they are of no concern to a corporation
Who is going to rob, rape, and/or murder you? The person being tracked via satellite who is specifically responding to your request for a pick up? It's not even worth it to try and rob an Uber driver. You would need a stolen phone and credit card in order to be able to do that, otherwise it's pretty easy to prove exactly who was there. It's not like with a taxi that you can anonymously hail, shoot them while they're sitting in the seat, take everything and go.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
If your job is going to the way of the dodo, then get off your ass and learn something that isn't. I have no sympathy for people who spend their lives in bottom-of-the-barrel jobs only to be surprised that they're being replaced with a better system.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Wrong, it reveals the stupidity of people who had up to that point successfully hidden it from view.
I thought the whole point of Uber is it's always cheaper than a taxi. Guess not.
Because you are used to the area, you do not think about driving as much near home - instead thinking about what you will do where you are going or when you get home, when you are close. It's easy to grow inattentive and miss a change that leads to an accident.
Picking someone up and dropping someone off has none of the risks of familiarity since each situation is different.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Difference being that Uber is sucking up around $213,000,000 per year by avoiding significant insurance coverages that their competitors are having to pay. They're offloading this chunk of the insurance burden on their 'independent contractors' who are not able to cover injuries like a $1 Billion / year revenue company can.
What does it matter? It's the difference between being compensated properly for a life-changing injury caused by an 'independent contractor' working for Uber and suffering "tough luck" by getting zilch in compensation. Compensation is the deciding factor between institutionalized living or as normal-as-possible life for the remainder of your years.
That corporate structure doesn't work the way you think it does. An LLC is created so it can implode in the face of a liability claim and protect the owners. If Yellow Cab were operating as an LLC, they would have dissolved after the first accident by one of their cabs.
Instead, in the big cities like New York and Chicago, the cab companies are trying to shield themselves from liability in the same way as Uber-- the drivers are independent contractors.
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"Cheaper than a New York taxi"... umm, "What is a bar of gold, Alex?"
Once their competition is in the drain, do you think they will not increase their fares? Or find other reasons to charge more?
By now the average NYC taxi has built up so much I'll will and resentment it will be decades before any of the cab using public can shed a tear over their fate.
I'm not sure that it's cheaper. There are a lot of variables like distance, time, weather if they decide to increase prices, etc... I did just take my first ride for Free using promo code ubersummertime30 when I downloaded the app.. I plan on using the service again and can update on prices then..