How Much do Boston UberX Drivers Make in a Night?

Am I misunderstanding, or did the article gloss over the cost of keeping up your car as a driver? They talk about how renting a cab costs a certain amount up-front, plus insurance, plus some other stuff. Then they sort of hand-wave that an Uber driver also has those costs. I don&#x27;t doubt that the rental fees are expensive, but it seems an unfair comparison when the rental fees pay for maintenance of the car, and they don&#x27;t include maintenance that Uber drivers have to do. And I don&#x27;t know of any jurisdictions in the US where you don&#x27;t need insurance to drive.<p>I also found it interesting that the rental fees include a 30 cent parking-violation fee. At my office we had a problem with Uber who were constantly parking illegally in front of our building. So they&#x27;re getting the benefit of illegal parking without paying the (admittedly small) fee that cabbies have to pay. Of course it costs less! Especially if you don&#x27;t count keeping up your car and the community!

The linked article - <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/03/30/spotlight/9eVWW7Y6RaOIqII62n2XlI/story.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bostonglobe.com&#x2F;metro&#x2F;2013&#x2F;03&#x2F;30&#x2F;spotlight&#x2F;9eVWW7...</a> is a real eye-opener about the costs that traditional taxi drivers have to pay in order to work a shift. I&#x27;m no Uber fan but you can see how drivers would prefer working for them.<p>The long-term question is, will Uber stay a better-behaved taxi service owner if&#x2F;when it cracks the market?

All these drivers talk about liking how they can work when they want. It makes me wonder if Uber ever goes into Surge pricing on times where the demand is low, but the supply is even lower, like Sunday mornings.<p>(Also, the close button on site&#x27;s popup &quot;please sign up to be spammed&quot; window is almost invisible with dark grey on black. So scammy.)

I should add one anecdote, there is a guy in San Diego who is using ridesharing to try to make $150,000 in the year and start up a company. In order to do this, he has to make ~3k a week, and I think it&#x27;s impressive that he&#x27;s been consistently doing this for about 3 months now. It will take a serious toll on him (we&#x27;re talking 50-60 hour weeks, and I am not sure he&#x27;s taking getting sick into account) and I seriously worry about some his business judgements. Nonetheless, he is on track and about a quarter of the way there.

I&#x27;m confused about these lines:<p>&quot;As self-employed, independent contractors, though, UberX drivers receive a Form 1099-MISC...Subsequently, UberX drivers are hit with a 5.6 percent tax deduction for each mile they drive...if he or she drove 100 miles, he or she will be taxed $56 (5.6 percent tax x 100 miles driven).&quot;<p>Why is this the case? In my experience with 1099s, they have nothing to do with miles driven. In any case, I don&#x27;t understand how 5.6% of 100 = $56. Could somebody please elaborate on this?

Damn, $300&#x2F;night. So that&#x27;s like 9 grand&#x2F;month if you work every night. And probably can under-report tips and meet interesting people too instead of wasting hard earned cash buying rounds at overpriced bars and lounges on weekends.<p>Beats working for a Boston IT company where you make about 100-120K a year but get taxed like crazy.

Surely insurance companies exclude driving for hire or similar from the insured uses of vehicles in the USA? They certainly do in UK. If you drove as an unlicensed taxi-driver and took a consideration you&#x27;d be driving without insurance.

I talked with a BOS driver who had a Toyota Sienna and participated in UberX and UberXL. For UberX, they take 20%, and for UberXL they take 28% (he also mentioned he ended up being paid the same on both tiers.)

I really like how this article answers the question in the headline in the first few lines. Too many launch into an in-depth discussion and seem to forget that the article may just be browsed over quickly.