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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.
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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!"
Cab fares are regulated in NYC. Competition has nothing to do with it. http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/ht...