I would say I sound like a broken record but that would give away my age, and erode my cred, which is already abysmal. So I'll just say I will repeat myself. Taxi economics: cost of car, cost of driver, cost of gasoline, plus minimal (dispatch and maintenance) overhead = minimal profit and no particular scale economies beyond any one city. Uber economics: cost of car, cost of driver, cost of gasoline, plus massive corporate overhead = significant losses. And if no particular advantage to scale (as Ms. Griswold points out), then why would Uber (the ridehail part, not the delivery part) ever make money? The things they do at the margin to be more efficient than taxis (e.g. algorithmic tweaking of drivers and cars) don't move the needle enough to offset costs like paying a CEO $20 or $40 million (let alone the other 25,000+ Uber employees (not counting drivers oops I mean earners)). Short of the eventual Holy Grail of driverless robotaxis, how does any ridehail company fundamentally alter the cost triad of fuel, driver, and car?
I would say I sound like a broken record but that would give away my age, and erode my cred, which is already abysmal. So I'll just say I will repeat myself. Taxi economics: cost of car, cost of driver, cost of gasoline, plus minimal (dispatch and maintenance) overhead = minimal profit and no particular scale economies beyond any one city. Uber economics: cost of car, cost of driver, cost of gasoline, plus massive corporate overhead = significant losses. And if no particular advantage to scale (as Ms. Griswold points out), then why would Uber (the ridehail part, not the delivery part) ever make money? The things they do at the margin to be more efficient than taxis (e.g. algorithmic tweaking of drivers and cars) don't move the needle enough to offset costs like paying a CEO $20 or $40 million (let alone the other 25,000+ Uber employees (not counting drivers oops I mean earners)). Short of the eventual Holy Grail of driverless robotaxis, how does any ridehail company fundamentally alter the cost triad of fuel, driver, and car?
One of the biggest variable areas of expense is the insurance costs - would be interesting to hear your take on that side of the equation!