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Comment by slavik81 | Hacker News Reader

I would expect that an Uber driver would be doing far more than 15k miles per year. That's just normal usage.

You're also mixing up your accounting. The parent was discussing marginal costs, and you're discussing average costs. The marginal cost is what's used for making economic decisions, like deciding to drive for Uber or not.

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From op's data,

    10,000 - $0.7354 
    15,000 - $0.5646
    20,000 - $0.4944

I just don't see how you get that marginal cost down to $0.20, yes mile n+1 is a little bit cheaper than mile n. and sure, let's pretend that high milage cars used cars sell for the same as low milage cars. so financing is fixed. I just don't see how you can get regular maintenance and gas and insurance down to 20c/mile.

You're looking at average cost, which includes half-ton pickups and large SUVs. Look at page 6, which contains small and medium sedans.

Ah, i see. I misunderstood your argument. I thought you meant something like "an average person want to pick up some uber shifts. they already have the car, so the expense can't be that much." I'd assumed an average person would have an average car, and thus average cpm.

you mean (i think) someone needs a car for whatever reason. They specifically select a car they can use with uber, maximum mpg, least maintenance, and used. That might work. i'm still (very) skeptical of the $0.20/mi cost. But i could see you might be able to get that quoted $0.37 down to $0.32 or if you're really lucky, $0.30

A full time Uber driver is likely to do about 75,000 miles in a year.

My wife does 3-4 days a week for prime now. On track to hitting 12k miles this year. Just as a data point

The average driver between 20-50 drives around 15,000 a year.

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm

The average driver implicitly isn't using ride sharing so there's really no relationship between that stat and this discussion other than it'll be closer to your number than to the average daily miles of a glactic starship captain.

A better number would be a taxi driver.

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