I Don’t Own, I Uber
A year after selling my car and going full Uber, I crunched the numbers. Guess what I found.
A little over a year ago, I moved to London and as part of the move, I sold my car. This was a big deal for me as a native of LA, where car ownership is celebrated, no matter how bad the traffic gets. I owned a 2004 Toyota 4Runner with 140k miles (not all VCs fly in private jets to work). I am not a “car person,” but I loved my car because it almost never broke down in our ten years together. But, the move meant it had to go, and so it was sold for next-to-nothing to a really nice dad with two kids.
While I may have been sad to see my car go, I wasn’t concerned about being car-less because — when not on strike — public transportation is pretty good in Europe, and Uber is nearly ubiquitous in major cities. I knew Uber was more expensive in London, but everything was more expensive in London and I had factored that into my decision to move in the first place.
What I didn’t expect was that depending on Uber (UberX specifically) would actually be cheaper than owning and driving a car. Much cheaper. Yes, the company says this, but I didn’t think it was realistic yet.
Well, it is. At least for me.
I’ve been back in SF for a couple of months and have been wondering if I should buy a car. So, I compared my transportation expenses over the past two years. There are some obvious caveats, but here’s a quick break-down:читать дальше