Remark Uber is starting a month-long trial called “One Less Car.” With this, Uber wants to show that people are better off with rides via the app than with owning their own car.
Conveniently, it would also show how Uber is better off if people use Uber more often. What a twist.
The trial will involve just 175 carefully selected people in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver and Washington DC, and will run from July 22 through August 25. You can sign up here.
Each participant will be given $1,000 in Uber vouchers, with the added bonus that they are not allowed to use their own vehicles but instead must use the app, as well as public transportation, bikes and even good old-fashioned walking to get around.
Uber tells The register that $500 of the credits can be used for ridesharing and e-bikes, $200 for car rentals and $300 for public transit. Uber expects the trial to prove that using its ride-hailing app will help people save money and reduce emissions.
That said, Uber’s claims about the cost of car ownership are questionable at best. It says it will give participants $1,000 because that’s the average monthly cost of owning a car, based on a 2023 survey by AAA. But the study only looked at brand new cars, not used cars. At least in the US, people buy many more used cars than new ones, and the cost of maintaining new and old vehicles is not the same.
Additionally, AAA’s thousand-dollar-a-month figure includes depreciation or loss in value. Depreciation, however, is not a monthly expense that anyone has to pay, and only kicks in when someone sells their car for less than what they paid for it. It goes without saying that depreciation is especially bad for new cars, which start out at a very high price, and AAA estimates a monthly loss in value of $375.
A thousand bucks in big cities doesn’t get you that many rides, either. According to Uber’s own ride-cost estimates as of October 1, an 11-mile ride from North Miami to Miami Beach costs $23, while a 14-mile ride from San Francisco International Airport to the city itself costs an eye-watering $40—and that’s without tips. With just $500 in rides, participants can justify at most one Uber ride every other day during the trial.
Ubering can definitely be greener
The expectation is of course that participants will be encouraged to explore other modes of transportation, and in major North American cities there are generally some alternatives such as trains, subways and buses. Of course, public transportation cannot get people to every possible destination, and the expectation is that walking and biking will make up the difference.
But as we all know, the United States is very much geared toward private car ownership. Public transportation is really hit or miss, to say the least, and there are few places where you can actually walk. So hop on your bike or get in someone’s car.
Uber has already tried this experiment in Australia, where it conducted a study and found that when people couldn’t use their cars, they took 86 percent more buses and 156 percent more train trips. They also walked 75 percent more and cycled four to five times more.
Uber, as we snapped at the beginning, has financial self-interest here. In a world where people don’t own cars and treat taxis more like public transportation, Uber would be much more profitable. At the same time, the ride-share organization is not without controversy, particularly over compensation for its drivers, employee classification and poor customer experiences, including charging disabled passengers who wait too long to board.
There is also the possibility that Uber will replace its fleet of vehicles with self-driving vehicles, which could be good for Uber and perhaps for its passengers, but it would cost many people their jobs. ®