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Study finds Uber may be cheaper than owning a car, but don’t sell yours just yet

The app that helps you find the best savings account with the best interest rate, My Treasury has revealed results of a study it conducted that sought to find which was cheaper: using Uber or owning a car.

Now before you start advertising your car on Gumtree for some extra Christmas gift money it’s important to know the methodology My Treasury used. The vehicle used by My Treasury was a Toyota Corolla 1.8 Exclusive which retails for R300 900.

The expenses associated with using the vehicle for a year follow below:

Expense Cost per annum
Depreciation and finance costs R61 000
Insurance R18 000
Parking R1 560
Cleaning R1 800
Licences, tolls, fines R2 000
Petrol R27 000

For those of you keeping score the total comes to R111 360 per annum, assuming all of those figures remain static.

By contrast Uber appears much cheaper. The ride hailing app chargers riders a base fare fee of R5. From there a rider is charged R0.75 per minute and R7.50 per kilometre. This means that the cost of each Uber trip can vary depending on how fast the driver is moving and what route they take.

Take this example for instance.

uber-screens

 

This Uber trip was theoretically the same distance but due to drivers taking different routes and most importantly, the time of day, one ended up costing more.

To My Treasury’s credit it does point out that if you drive 40km or less every day then Uber might work out cheaper for you. As much as R14 000 cheaper which according to My Treasury’s research means that you would still be handing over R97 360 to Uber which brings with it its own set of problems.

Making less of an impact on your wallet, and by extension the environment (given that there will be one less carbon dioxide/monoxide spewing machine on the road) is not the only benefit of using Uber says My Treasury.

“As an Uber rider, you’re freeing up time to organise your life: make calls, send WhatsApps and finally clear your inbox,” writes the firm. If you happen to be earning R150 an hour that time spent behind the wheel of a car fighting through traffic accounts for about R2.50 a kilometre according to My Treasury.

What the study doesn’t address however is the many folks that live in areas where Uber simply doesn’t go such as far flung areas around the main metropolitan areas. I live in such an area and relying on an Uber to be in my area at the time I need to go somewhere is not ideal. There’s also the matter of folks that don’t have access to a credit card though cash payments are now accepted by many Uber drivers.

Simply put unless you meet the conditions outlined by My Treasury, using an Uber might not work out cheaper for you.

It is however interesting research and if you happen to match the figures that My Treasury has put forward then perhaps 2017 would be a good year to sell your car and get a nice smartphone instead?

We want to hear from you. Would you sell your car and switch to Uber for your daily commute or do you prefer the comfort of your own car? Let us know in the comments below.

[Image – CC BY 2.0 psyberartist]

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