Uber with a Tesla

[Keith909man]

Who here has used their Tesla or planning to use their Tesla as a Uber?

A few of my buddies at work told me they were using Uber and other ride sharing apps to be able to make they car payment and such every month. So I thought I will give Uber Eats a try this last weekend to see if it’s worth it. I did it for 3 days Saturday Sunday and Monday (had off) as a part time evening gig. To my surprise, I had made little over $600 plus $48 in cash tips just for picking up and dropping off food orders. No ride sharing whatsoever. (Heard you make more ride sharing but idk if I’m ready for that craziness)

I guess this could be a great way for extra income especially using a EV where gas won’t cut into earnings.

So in your opinion, does this make sense with a Tesla?

 

[brobinson]

How many miles did you drive over that period of time? How many orders was it that made up that $600? How many hours did you put in each day?

I think an EV is probably the perfect car due to the low cost to run, whether or not it's worth it probably depends on how you value your time.

 

[chronopc]

View attachment 329762 Who here has used their Tesla or planning to use their Tesla as a Uber?

A few of my buddies at work told me they were using Uber and other ride sharing apps to be able to make they car payment and such every month. So I thought I will give Uber Eats a try this last weekend to see if it’s worth it. I did it for 3 days Saturday Sunday and Monday (had off) as a part time evening gig. To my surprise, I had made little over $600 plus $48 in cash tips just for picking up and dropping off food orders. No ride sharing whatsoever. (Heard you make more ride sharing but idk if I’m ready for that craziness)

I guess this could be a great way for extra income especially using a EV where gas won’t cut into earnings.

So in your opinion, does this make sense with a Tesla?

How many hours did it take you in total to make $600?

 

[Keith909man]

Good questions. I didn’t track miles as I should have due to just dipping my toes into the platform. But I can tell you the system will typically only give you orders if you are near the requesting restaurant and drop off is typically under 5 miles. 2-3 miles seems to be average per order. But, that probably had a lot to do with the area. “Urbanish” area with lots of restaurants and residential. As far as time goes, 4-5 hours a evening or if I was hitting my goal I would end early.

 

[srharris22]

Good questions. I didn’t track miles as I should have due to just dipping my toes into the platform. But I can tell you the system will typically only give you orders if you are near the requesting restaurant and drop off is typically under 5 miles. 2-3 miles seems to be average per order. But, that probably had a lot to do with the area. “Urbanish” area with lots of restaurants and residential. As far as time goes, 4-5 hours a evening or if I was hitting my goal I would end early.

How many hours for the $600 total though?

based on your picture it was around $32 over 1.5 hours (just ball parking when the first pick up was/drive time) so would take 30 hours to reach $600 if working consistently - granted you had a lull in the picture from first drop off till next one was 40 min later.

 

[Keith909man]

This could be a good way to make your model 3 payment probably within a few days a week as a side gig if one didn’t want to cut into their annual income.

 

[Keith909man]

How many hours for the $600 total though?

based on your picture it was around $32 over 1.5 hours (just ball parking when the first pick up was/drive time) so would take 30 hours to reach $600 if working consistently - granted you had a lull in the picture from first drop off till next one was 40 min later.

I would say I was doing just about that 30 an hour give or take. I was getting 2-3 orders an hour. Got the Uber fare plus tips. If anyone here is from the Tacoma WA area, there was a large data outage in the area on Monday for Verizon and I’m sure you could vouch for that. So the network kept booting me and there was large gaps in orders on Monday due to this. Literally, Monday was More or less a waste. But still made $110 with the outage problems.

 

[brobinson]

Good questions. I didn’t track miles as I should have due to just dipping my toes into the platform. But I can tell you the system will typically only give you orders if you are near the requesting restaurant and drop off is typically under 5 miles. 2-3 miles seems to be average per order. But, that probably had a lot to do with the area. “Urbanish” area with lots of restaurants and residential. As far as time goes, 4-5 hours a evening or if I was hitting my goal I would end early.

so 15 hours over 3 days? That translates to almost $40/hr. Seems too good to be true, but maybe you are in a prime area for this sort of service.

 

[Dana1]

I’d be hesitant to buy a car that I needed a second job to make the payment. Life can change a lot over a 5+ year note. Make sure you have the correct car insurance. One uninsured car accident can wipe you out.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

Good questions. I didn’t track miles as I should have due to just dipping my toes into the platform. But I can tell you the system will typically only give you orders if you are near the requesting restaurant and drop off is typically under 5 miles. 2-3 miles seems to be average per order. But, that probably had a lot to do with the area. “Urbanish” area with lots of restaurants and residential. As far as time goes, 4-5 hours a evening or if I was hitting my goal I would end early.

There are several apps that you can use to track your mileage. One that you might consider is Stride Tax.

Just be aware that Tesla came out with a statement in December 2017 indicating you shouldn't be using Superchargers for commercial purposes. Cars before that are grandfathered in but it's not allowed on cars purchased after that:
Privacy & Legal | Tesla
Tesla is prohibiting commercial drivers from using its Supercharger stations

 

[rfmurphy81]

If you have TeslaFi running, it can automatically track all your drives, charges, etc. and you can tag them afterwards as Uber Eats drives so you can easily pull up this data.

 

[Keith909man]

so 15 hours over 3 days? That translates to almost $40/hr. Seems too good to be true, but maybe you are in a prime area for this sort of service.

Yea that’s what I thought as well when a couple friends were telling me until I tried it. But yes, your area will have a lot to do with what you can earn. Everyone’s results will vary. But worth giving a try over a weekend
And see how the market is in your area.

As far as using it as a sole purpose to make ends meet on something, I wouldn’t recommended. I used it for vacation money where I won’t be digging in my monthly income. Some do it full time and do well but I’m not about that life.

Also, the reason why it can pay out largely (at times) is they have what’s called “boost” hours. Normally around lunch and dinner. That’s adds additional money to your fares due to demand in the area/time. I’ve noticed my area is in boost mode from 11:00am till 4am everyday

 

[Sneakerhead]

Not worth the time and effort imo. And low pay.

 

[Cheburashka]

Yeah, seems like you'd be making maybe $20/hr and putting wear and tear on your $60K car... Don't see the point.

 

[MXWing]

Some of the front end income you make up front will be deducted in the back end just from extra miles utilized. The list of back end expenses are too numerous to list.

That and you get paid the same no matter if you deliver my happy meal in a Prius or a Lamborghini Aventador.

Uber/Lyft can make things interesting by offering a Tesla service class that accounts for the premiums I alluded to above and downtime from charging.

 

[Cheburashka]

Also, it's not even tax-free income. You'll have to pay taxes as a contractor.

 

[ℬête Noire]

Also, it's not even tax-free income. You'll have to pay taxes as a contractor.

On the flip side you can deduct as a contractor. If percentage of miles for the business are low enough you can do the more simple un-itemized deduction of roughly 54c/mi (number varies year to year). If you have a home office (of course you do, to manage the books) you can deduct a percentage of the interest on the mortgage and utilities based on sq ft of office to the whole of the dwelling. A few other things as well. You'd definitely need to have and talk to an tax accountant about the details....upfront so you avoid nasty surprises.

I've done this (well not Uber/Lyft, etc, this predated that), worked contract with my own vehicle that was basically selling my vehicle at something over $1/mile. At 60mph (most was open road miles) and upwards of 10K mi/month that can be okay, you've got enough money to work the accounting so that income tax is minimal. ((This was some time back, too.))

Unfortunately depreciation on a brand new Model 3 LR is likely to be rather drastic for those first miles that push it out of warranty so the 54c may be a lowball. The people that make real money are the ones that tend to buy cheap used cars, maintain them themselves, and drive the vehicles into the dirt minimizing the inputs.

Eventually EVs will do well in this space but that's a few years out when they've already gone through the first part of their depreciation curve, with the caveat that how much different the EV, particularly Model 3 depreciation curves are going be from ICE is still a bit of an unknown.

EDIT: BTW you do need to watch your car insurance on this. That's the other thing that I could do with enough revenue was purchase a proper umbrella policy for working commercial.

 

[Knightshade]

Might wanna check the impact on both the Tesla warranty and the federal tax credit if you are using the car commercially

 

[LyftupX]

I drive , no tesla but came close to a purchase a while back and have thought about the 3.

Over the 2 years I do it in my market I can average $1.10- 1.20 for every mile driven on the X platform, which is the most basic. It has all the calls and business....the above factors in miles not being paid. The key is not driving around aimlessly looking for rides to keep miles down.
My main use vehcile is 9 yr old suv and on that ....for weekends and busy times I’m around $1.65+ every mile driven, that vehcile is older paid off and depriciation is minimal.

I thought about a model 3 and possibly making a channel on using it for rideshare and paying it off doing so. Kind of track the ongoing expirement...how the car is holding up etc. I don’t need the gig to pay for the car but it would help and I feel like a fun car like the model 3 would motivate me to drive more.

As far as taxes , yep that’s the stinger. And if you are in a higher tax bracket. That’s a big chunk of each dollar...incremental rate + SE taxes. I’ve combatted this by utilizing a solo 401k account, I’ve put $20k in it over the past 1.5 years. You can’t have a workplace 401k in order to qualify for this.


Good luck, it’s very market dependent on how profitable you can be. Rookies remember Acceptance Rate does not count, so don’t accept rides that are too far away that’s just miles you are wasting on a potential short ride. Keep em close and never uber pool or Lyft share rides. the companies are charging more for rides but not sharing it with the drivers, surge rides which were the $ makers for drivers have gone away drastically.

I’ve read Lyft will place the car on the Lux Platform (higher per mile fare) but yet to hear if it’s qualified for Uber Select. Can anyone confirm? These are good bonuses but also these type of rides are not used near as much as X which would be your bread and butter that you need to base your overall earnings on.

 

[Keith909man]

I drive , no tesla but came close to a purchase a while back and have thought about the 3.

Over the 2 years I do it in my market I can average $1.10- 1.20 for every mile driven on the X platform, which is the most basic. It has all the calls and business....the above factors in miles not being paid. The key is not driving around aimlessly looking for rides to keep miles down.
My main use vehcile is 9 yr old suv and on that ....for weekends and busy times I’m around $1.65+ every mile driven, that vehcile is older paid off and depriciation is minimal.

I thought about a model 3 and possibly making a channel on using it for rideshare and paying it off doing so. Kind of track the ongoing expirement...how the car is holding up etc. I don’t need the gig to pay for the car but it would help and I feel like a fun car like the model 3 would motivate me to drive more.

As far as taxes , yep that’s the stinger. And if you are in a higher tax bracket. That’s a big chunk of each dollar...incremental rate + SE taxes. I’ve combatted this by utilizing a solo 401k account, I’ve put $20k in it over the past 1.5 years. You can’t have a workplace 401k in order to qualify for this.


Good luck, it’s very market dependent on how profitable you can be. Rookies remember Acceptance Rate does not count, so don’t accept rides that are too far away that’s just miles you are wasting on a potential short ride. Keep em close and never uber pool or Lyft share rides. the companies are charging more for rides but not sharing it with the drivers, surge rides which were the $ makers for drivers have gone away drastically.

I’ve read Lyft will place the car on the Lux Platform (higher per mile fare) but yet to hear if it’s qualified for Uber Select. Can anyone confirm? These are good bonuses but also these type of rides are not used near as much as X which would be your bread and butter that you need to base your overall earnings on.

That’s interesting. So the ride sharing platform will automatically place you in the “luxury” category which pays out more but the fragrance of rides will be less?