$24,000 a year is not a bill most Americans can afford.
Where are you getting $24,000 from? The parent to your comment said he has spent $2,000 so far this year, extrapolating that out says he might spend ~$5,000 on Uber by year end. I think the average American easily spends $5,000 on a vehicle annually. I probably spend at least half that amount just on gas.
In fact, that $5k is probably close to what you'd spend just on parking and insurance in a major city like SF (i.e. your costs if you never used the vehicle but already owned it). If you add in car payments, gas, maintenance there is likely a significant savings from using Uber vs owning a car.
Come on guys, think about this critically for just a few minutes.
First of all, what kind of insane person pays $5k for parking and insurance? I have a new car with fairly high rates and pay about $1,100 in insurance. My parking expenditure (yes, I live in SF) is maybe $10 a week -- we'd need to imagine a parking expenditure of about $80 a week to get my total parking plus insurance to come out to $5,000 a year. I'm sure some people pay $5k for parking and insurance -- but those people are self-evidently not cost-sensitive.
As to gas and maintenance, you obviously pay those for an Uber car just like you pay for it for your own car -- in fact, you pay more for these mileage-related costs, since the car has to drive over to you as well as drive you wherever you go. Unless the driver is operating at a loss, your fare obviously more than covers the gas and maintenance fees, ergo you're paying it. Just because you don't personally stand at the pump does not mean you aren't paying for it.
You also, just as obviously, pay the insurance costs for a ride-for-hire vehicle that you're in. Indeed, the insurance costs are probably inherently higher than the ones for your personal vehicle.
> First of all, what kind of insane person pays $5k for parking and insurance?
> My parking expenditure (yes, I live in SF) is maybe $10 a week
"You'd have to be insane to get the unusually low rate I get on parking!"
Please tell me this is a joke. This is as dumb as saying "I can't believe people let themselves get so ripped off on their rent: I pay $900/mo to live downtown under rent control, why don't they just do that?" For some actual data instead of nonsense like what you're saying, look at something like: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/prk/
You can't really find a parking spot for less than $250 (~$62/wk). I expected this to not be the case in some outlying areas, but it looks like you have to go all the way to Glen Park to find parking for cheaper than that. Parking that comes with rentals is cheaper (about $150/mo generally), but not everyone has that option and I'm sure you agree that it's idiotic to say that you have to be "insane" to happen to live somewhere that doesn't come with a parking spot option. Either way, parking is 3-5x what you seem to think it is.
> As to gas and maintenance, you obviously pay those for an Uber car just like you pay for it for your own car -- in fact, you pay more for these mileage-related costs, since the car has to drive over to you as well as drive you wherever you go.
Your math is wayyyyy off here. You pay a minuscule fraction of the insurance costs for an Uber: largely because you're paying in proportion to your usage, and all the times that the car is parked or picking up other fares is not your responsibility to pay for. By contrast, even if you drive the exact same amount you would've Uber'ed, you don't get to tell the insurance company "I only drove 3 out of every 24 hrs this week, so I'm going to pay you 1/8 the premium". TL;DR for this paragraph: You seem to be completely forgetting the fact that insurance (and maintenance) related costs are driven down by increased utilization, and almost by definition an Uber has infinitely higher utilization than an owned car.
It is trivial to spend much, much, much less money on parking than you seem to imagine is common. You don't need to park downtown, which is well-served by BART, Caltrain, Muni, etc. (and which is a nightmare to drive in anyway). Parking at a BART station is $2 per day.
If you want to spend thousands of dollars a year on unnecessary parking expenses for the dubious convenience of having a car downtown, hey, more power to you. But you clearly are not very driven by cost-consciousness.
No meaningful fraction of your insurance costs for your car cover the time it is parked, because your car is not meaningfully at risk when it is parked. You do, in fact, tell your insurance company how much you drive your car when you pick up your insurance. You don't get to do this on a week-by-week basis because of transactional costs[1], but it's part of the standard form you filled out when you got your insurance. Uber drivers need to carry much more, and more expensive, insurance than you do due to the fact that they drive much more (and routinely have strangers in their cars).
I can't imagine how you think that maintenance costs are driven down by driving more. Is it your contention that driving more makes your car work better?
[1] Actually, I think that some insurance companies are experimenting with monitoring devices in cars that give you a lower rate, so maybe this is becoming more possible. But I'm not at all familiar with the details.
I have multiple vehicles, but I think I pay on average about $700/vehicle/year.
Parking varies widely, the last time I had a parking garage subscription in Cambridge (MA), it was ~$130/month.
Gas, insurance, simple parking and a couple of oil changes gets me very close to $5,000 easily.
The relative insurance and maintenance prices rolled in the Uber price vs. private vehicle costs don't really matter. All that matters is out of pocket dollars. Sure, you might be paying an effective insurance rate on the Uber of 2x your private insurance cost, but unlike private insurance which you pay for 24/7/365 (effectively), you're only paying the insurance cost to Uber when you're actually riding. So, it can very easily work out in your favor even if some of the unit costs seem abnormally high.
In Seattle, over the last 8 years I've averaged 2933$/year on my car (which I own outright). That includes insurance, licensing fees, parking, gas, maintenance, tickets, rental costs, gps, and tolls.
I don't think you can make a compelling case for a taxi service vs car ownership based on cost -- but rather convenience.
Perhaps not in Seattle. I'm pretty sure the costs you mention are higher in SF (just like everything else...) depending on your circumstances, it can start to approach a no-brainer. Recently, I've probably been spending in the neighborhood of 80 to 100 dollars a weekend on Uber (~$2100-$2600/yr), and the guy above mentioned he spends roughly ~5000/yr on Uber. The cost of owning a car ranges from 5000 to 15000 a year[1][2][3], and it's substantially more expensive in San Francisco because this doesn't include parking, tickets, and tolls, so you can tack on another ~3000 for parking alone, minimum. (at ~250/mo, pretty much minimum)[4]. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see how for people in certain situations (e.g., no long commute), the cost alone could be more than worth it.
