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Comment by moonka | Hacker News Reader

I find it telling that neither this or the linked blog post give specifics on the amount they are providing. I'm guessing most of the additional costs to go electric will fall on the driver.

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EVs have half the per mile operating costs as an internal combustion vehicle. This increases EV utilization on the network, incentivizing the deployment of EVs on Uber’s network by drivers.

You shouldn’t buy an EV solely to drive for Uber, but if you are going to drive for Uber and have an EV, you should get more rides sent your way.

A lot of the operating cost advantage will disappear when attempting to use an EV as an Uber vehicle, though. Most EVs cost more than an ICE-powered vehicle and take longer to "fill up" when at the end of their range - so, for large portions of a day, you will have a more expensive asset deprecating in a parking lot as it charges its batteries.

I'm not sure that this is enough to actually make an EV more expensive to operate than a traditional car as a Uber vehicle, but I do think that it's worth pointing out that the workload of an Uber vehicle is enough to move a car out of the operating window that is usually used to support statements like "EVs have half the per mile operating costs as an internal combustion vehicle".

If the vehicle currently isn't in revenue service then it's not "operating." If it's not operating, then it's not contributing to operating cost. The time to recharge the batteries is variable overhead, not operating cost.

I get the point you're trying to make, but I don't think it's valid.

Fixed costs are a component of operating costs. I'm an engineer (at least by education) so I might have these terms slightly wrong, but I think the correct way to say this is that EVs have higher fixed costs and lower variable costs - and both of those are part of operating costs.

FWIW, I'm not representing this as a full analysis, just pointing out that "EVs are cheaper to operate when driven by someone as a daily driver" doesn't necessarily mean "EVs are cheaper to operate as an Uber vehicle".

Considering an extreme example: for a car that can only do 1 trip then requires a day of recharge clearly the operator is losing out on a lot of potential revenue. That is a real cost and should be factored somewhere when comparing against another vehicle which can recharge quickly between trips.

Part of operation is the maintenance required to do the work and at the very least any time spent charging above the average alternative (refueling an ICE car) is losing the operator the average wages they'd have earned operation for that long.

Agreed. Also in London at least at lot of the vehicles are being used in multiple shifts, which makes this problem even worse.

Eg: Driver A does 9am-6pm, then drives the Prius to Driver B, who does 6pm to 3am, which leaves not enough time to charge.

This is why fast DC charging makes a huge difference. There are a number of car service fleets using Teslas (e.g. the Schiphol Airport taxis in Amsterdam). When you can re-load 200 miles in 30 minutes of charging, the driver can recharge the car over their lunch break.

It seems like it would take tremendous effort on Uber's part to keep EVs viable as ride sharing vehicles otherwise you're looking at vehicles that will provide 3 or 4 trips a shift then be done for the day. Refueling an ICE takes 5 minutes tops then it's back on the road at 100% effectiveness and gas stations are everywhere. Even with the highest DC Fast Charging you're still looking at 15-30 minutes to get an EV to 80% and DC Fast Chargers are uncommon, so there would need to be a build out of DC Fast Chargers available possibly exclusively to Uber EVs. Highway speeds are nightmares for EV range so Uber would need to assign fares selectively based on vehicle types and routes. Loitering isn't an effective use of an EV so you'd need to provide parking solutions near prime pickup locations. You can safely assume an ICE has range for a 10-15 mile trip anywhere but with EVs you'd need to be aware of the battery capacities and plan routes near charging stations so EVs could top up.

It just seems like a nonstarter and I'd feel bad for an Uber driver who purchases an EV thinking it will net them more profits.

vehicles that will provide 3 or 4 trips a shift then be done for the day.

Average Uber trip: 6 miles. Range of Chevy Bolt: 200+ miles.

Sure, but there's likely at least a multiplier of ~2 or so for idling and driving between passengers. Perhaps an Uber driver could provide a real number for (total miles driven / billed miles).

The Avg Trip metric doesn't at all take into account the loiter and distance to fare mileage.

Also the MPGe mile ratings on EVs are great for comparing one EV to another but as an EV owner I do not think they're representative of the actual range of an EV.

I have an Nissan Leaf with a 24kWh battery and my 25 mile commute uses anywhere from 8-12kWh of charge. With a range rating of 84 miles, that's 28-42 miles. You might dismiss that by saying I'm driving aggressively but the Leaf's range estimator usually indicates 90+ miles when I'm at 100% charge and is based on the previous trip's performance, so I'm beating the average.

>> so there would need to be a build out of DC Fast Chargers available possibly exclusively to Uber EVs.

This is great! Doing hard things is what gives a business a sustainable advantage. Such advantage may be needed for UBER in the age of self-driving cars.

>> Highway speeds are nightmares for EV range so Uber would need to assign fares selectively based on vehicle types and routes.

maybe 20%-30% penalty on range:

https://pushevs.com/electric-car-range-efficiency-epa/

Seems manageable with DC charging, considering all the benefits.

>> Loitering isn't an effective use of an EV so you'd need to provide parking solutions near prime pickup locations.

That's a problem.

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