Some Uber and Lyft drivers in the USA have started to shift to Tesla vehicles. By doing this they are able to increase their profit margin because the gas prices have increased quite a bit. Between June 2021 and May 2022, the number of Uber drivers increased by a massive 186 percent, according to statistics from Gridwise.
Heidi Barnes, 34, bought a Tesla Model 3 last year. She nicknamed her “The Beast”. The Model 3 replaced the 2009 Toyota Camry that she was using. Heidi is a Lancaster, California based driver. She decided to buy the Model 3 when the gas prices surpassed $4. Just in one day, her full tank started to cost around $100 which previously cost $60. This decreased her profit significantly. She said, “It was a huge push to get in a Tesla sooner rather than later,”
She decided to rent a Tesla Model 3 for a month through Hertz which works with Uber. They offer drivers a weekly rate of $344 that includes insurance, basic maintenance, and unlimited miles. Even after accounting for the cost to charge the car, Barnes was paying roughly $450 a week. This was less than $600 that was required to refill the fuel tank of the Camry. In the first week itself, Barnes’ earnings covered the cost of the rental for the month.
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Tesla is also quite likeable in the foreign markets because of this Heidi gets more generous tips. With the Camry, she used to get $1 to $3 tips, now she gets around $10 or $15. She said, They’re a lot more generous. Usually, I’m lucky to get $1 to $3 tips but it’s now $10 or $15, sometimes consecutively.”
As we can see that electric vehicles are significantly cheaper to run especially if you will be covering a lot of distance in them. The maintenance cost is also low because you would only need to spend on consumables and things that wear and tear.
Cost comparison between electric vehicle and ICE-vehicle
Earlier, this year we covered the cost differences between running electric vehicles and internal combustion engines. The difference was done by a person who owns a Hyundai Kona Electric and has covered more than 80,000 km on it.
The Hyundai Kona costs Rs. 25.3 lakh on-road Delhi. In comparison, a top-end Hyundai Creta Petrol costs Rs. 21.16 lakh and the diesel’s top-end trim costs Rs. 21.65 lakh. The owner has used 11 megawatts of electricity. This includes both home and public charging. His total money spent on charging is Rs 91,480.
He mostly used home charging to charge his car. You can use public chargers too. They are fast but also expensive when compared to home charging. He compared that if he would have used a petrol Hyundai Creta automatic for 80,000 km he will have to spend almost 6.99 lakh and if it would have been a diesel Hyundai Creta automatic for the same amount of kilometres then he would have spent Rs. 5.41 lakhs.
Now, that is a huge difference. When compared to Petrol Creta, the owner saved Rs 6,08,232 and Rs 4,50,000 lakh, when compared to Diesel Creta. If you want to go in-depth about this story then you can click here.
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