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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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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.
Enjoy using your million-dollar taxi medallion as a coaster from now on.
I like the part where you think a medallion prevents any of that.
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!"
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.
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...
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.
They do in Seattle and SF and Chicago at least (often, but not always Sikhs). they started as drivers and now own a medallion. often they are paying off loans for it. and along comes Bezos backed Uber...
the cities demanded that they buy them to do business. now some of these cities are negotiating with Uber. how does your trusting immigrant business owner feel now?
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"?
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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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