Remark Uber is launching a month-long trial called the “One Less Car” challenge to show that people are better off using the app’s rewards rides instead of owning their own vehicles.
Conveniently, it would also show how Uber is better off if people use Uber more. What a twist.
The trial involves just 175 carefully selected people in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver and Washington DC, and runs from July 22 to August 25. You can register here.
Each participant will receive an Uber voucher worth $1,000 and will be asked not to use their own transportation, but instead use the app, public transportation, bicycle and even the old-fashioned walk to get around.
Uber tells The register that $500 of the credits can be used for rides and e-bikes, $200 for car rentals and $300 for public transportation. Uber expects the trial to prove that using the taxi 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 certainly be greener
The expectation is, of course, that participants will be encouraged to explore other modes of transportation, and in North America’s major cities there are generally some alternatives such as trains, subways and buses. Of course, public transport cannot send people to every possible destination, and the expectation is that walking and cycling will make up the difference.
But as we all know, the United States is heavily focused on private car ownership. Public transportation is hit or miss, to say the least, and few places are truly walkable. So get on your bike or get in someone’s ride.
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 the bus 86 percent more often and took the train 156 percent more often. They also walked 75 percent more and cycled four to five times more often.
Uber, as we said at the beginning, has financial self-interest here. In a world where people don’t own cars and taxis are more like public transportation, Uber would be much more profitable. At the same time, the ride-share company is not without controversy, especially over driver compensation, the employment classification of those employees and poor customer experiences, including charging disabled passengers fees for taking too long to board .
There is also the possibility that Uber will replace its fleet with self-driving vehicles, which could be good for Uber and perhaps for its passengers, but it would cost many people their jobs. ®