[nishantbhatia84]

Originally Posted by anand.shankar

Any thoughts ?

This thought has come to the mind of a lot of my friends as well, and like I recommended to them, I would say it's not really a good idea - both financially and practically.

Let me explain:
1. You're looking at putting up a premium category vehicle - but then it HAS to run on CNG as the regulations mandate CNG cabs. It may not be enforced yet but it may happen at anytime! So now you're looking at the cost of a premium vehicle + cng fitment + cost of getting it converted into T-permit + higher insurance.

2. Let me give you a rough break-up of your fixed average monthly expenses: (Assuming you have a car worth at least 10 lakh to be eligible for UberBlack)
- Annual registration + fitness etc. : 12k = 1k pm
- Insurance : 35-38k zero dep = 3k pm
- Maintenance : 3-5k pm
In total you're looking at at least 8k of fixed monthly costs pm, excluding any vehicle EMIs and unforseen breakdowns / part failures.

3. Now, assuming that you drive for 8hrs on every weekend of the month managing an average if 5 trips a day, you'll make around 1800 bucks average per day, so that's 8 x 1800 = 14,400 pm less 8k of fixed expenses and at least 400 x 8 = 3200 bucks of fuel. This leaves you with a profit of 3200 bucks which is less than 500 bucks a day! I don't believe it is practical to drive 8hrs in traffic for this amount!

4. Even you if manage to get a good driver to run your vehicle daily, you'll essentially be making less than what your driver would end up making every day considering the fuel and maintenance costs will also go up relative to the higher running of the vehicle.

5. All in all, it'll take a really long time for you to get any practical returns against your investment - it'll mostly be negative considering the vehicle depreciates heavily once it is on T-permit. It is simply not feasible to run a premium car at 18 bucks per km.

Believe me, it is not really possible for a normal individual to drive for more than 8hrs a day in Mumbai traffic, and considering the horrible traffic we have, it is also not possible to complete more than 5 or 6 trips in that 8hrs!

Also, about your idea of running the car on T-permit for a year or so, let me advise you that the current rules state that a T-permit vehicle cannot be converted into private registration till it completes 3yrs. I've got to wait till October 2018 in order to convert my Ecosport to private registration - which will also be a considerable cost as I'll be charged the one time registration fee based on the current book value of the car.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other doubts!

Originally Posted by ChiragM

How does Uber (Ola as well) manage to earn a profit when they give away so much as incentives?

Who said they're even making any profit? Go look at the amount of loss Ola has been making YoY.
Talking about incentives, they've reduced the amount to peanuts since a long time!

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by ChiragM

How does Uber (Ola as well) manage to earn a profit when they give away so much as incentives? I am sure the incentives will compensate for the cut they take.

Per-ride cost is practically Zero for Uber. It has to support the drivers / fleet owners via :

1. Compliance processes
2. IT Systems

These costs are pretty much fixed for a given number of cities.



Based on filings (last financial year):

1. Uber India Technology net profit is 3.2 lakh
2. Uber India Systems net profit is 18 crore

https://www.financialexpress.com/ind...-fy17/1146019/

[rajwheelz]

Fantastic sir. And thanks for sharing the immense information.
Could also please clarify a couple of questions I have?


1. How is cancellation initiated by drivers monitored? what are the reasons drivers typically give to Uber?


The reason I ask is, the place I live in Bangalore is 30 kms away from ORR ( the busiest IT corridor ). And at least 90% of Uber drivers call me immediately upon booking asking for my destination and 75% of those 90% cancel the trip or ask me to cancel. I faced this almost NIL times on OLA.


2. Almost all Uber drives ( and fewer OLA ) I was in *had* to be requested for switching on the AC. Else they dont. Is AC a convenience offered as "complimentary" or is it a part of the fare to use AC?


Thanks.

[coolmind]

Thanks for the wonderful thread blackwasp.
Can you please, also throw some light on the way out to utilize the personal car (already registered but not as a commercial vehicle) for a cab service.

[Yieldway17]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

Based on filings (last financial year):

1. Uber India Technology net profit is 3.2 lakh
2. Uber India Systems net profit is 18 crore

https://www.financialexpress.com/ind...-fy17/1146019/

I really question these numbers as Uber global regularly mentions that they are losing money in India and needs capital investment to grow here. May be they are not counting all the money invested by the parent company so far as a loan? Not sure what kind of accounting turns those statements into profits. I will try to find sources for this.

[ashis89]

Another noob question.

When we open the app, sometimes we see a lot of cabs in our area. But when we book, we are assigned cabs which are few kms away. Are the cabs shown on screen fake? They don't seem to be moving and stay put in the same spot.

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by ashis89

Another noob question.

When we open the app, sometimes we see a lot of cabs in our area. But when we book, we are assigned cabs which are few kms away. Are the cabs shown on screen fake? They don't seem to be moving and stay put in the same spot.

Adding to your question, when I book, I can be standing in front of a line of Uber cabs awaiting a booking yet my assigned cab is a few KM away!

[blackwasp]

Originally Posted by rajwheelz

1. How is cancellation initiated by drivers monitored? what are the reasons drivers typically give to Uber?

Too high a cancellation number reflects in the driver's performance. Generally valid cancellations include customer taking more time to come, more number of passengers or luggage amongst others. Sometimes drivers cancel in cases the pickup might be just across the road, but the next legal U-turn could be 5 km away and the road might have traffic.

And at least 90% of Uber drivers call me immediately upon booking asking for my destination and 75% of those 90% cancel the trip or ask me to cancel. I faced this almost NIL times on OLA.

Is AC a convenience offered as "complimentary" or is it a part of the fare to use AC?

Drivers are not supposed to ask destinations to customers prior to trip start. Next time, just ask them to come to you and tell them the destination once they start the trip (the app will automatically do it if you have entered the destination).

AC is included in the fare.

Originally Posted by coolmind

Thanks for the wonderful thread blackwasp.
Can you please, also throw some light on the way out to utilize the personal car (already registered but not as a commercial vehicle) for a cab service.

No legal way of doing so. While there are operators who operate while plate cars as cabs, personally I won't recommend the same. They use it for private trips, outstation trips and fixed clients. No cab operator / aggregator will enrol such a car with them.

Originally Posted by ashis89

When we open the app, sometimes we see a lot of cabs in our area. But when we book, we are assigned cabs which are few kms away. Are the cabs shown on screen fake? They don't seem to be moving and stay put in the same spot.

Originally Posted by ajmat

Adding to your question, when I book, I can be standing in front of a line of Uber cabs awaiting a booking yet my assigned cab is a few KM away!

An interesting report came up something in 2015, saying that the cars on the app are just for show and not representative of the actual real time locations. While uber denied it. This could also be a reason. The other reason could be the driver is on his home trip and the destination you entered could be on his way.

CNN report on the same. However, despite the fact the only the closest car is assigned to you, I for a fact believe that ratings too have a role to play in this. Not sure how and Uber is not really forthcoming on this information.

[Prafful_Rathod]

Originally Posted by rajwheelz

1. How is cancellation initiated by drivers monitored?

2. Almost all Uber drives ( and fewer OLA ) I was in *had* to be requested for switching on the AC. Else they dont. Is AC a convenience offered as "complimentary" or is it a part of the fare to use AC?

These questions I also had in mind.

Many a times driver accepts the booking and the expected time of arrival for driver will be shown as 7 - 8 minutes, after 5 minutes it will again show 7 minutes, so the wait gets longer (once it became almost 25 minutes). The driver is not cancelling the ride for obvious reason (trying to keep his records clean). When I try to cancel Uber charges cancellation fees saying you have exceeded minimum time window for cancellation!! This is very annoying at times.

Once I was allotted one cab and it took eternity to come, then the driver cancelled, Uber automatically booked another cab which gave time to reach pick up point as 20 minutes and I was forced to pay cancellation charges for cancelling the ride without any fault on my part!!

2nd point about AC, I have noticed this with Uber Go - WagonR particularly. Almost all the WagonR which i have got in Uber have had poor ACs or may be just a coincidence or may be driver frequently switching it off to save money !!

[rst89]

Thanks for the nice compilation of your experiences Blackwasp and nishantbhatia84.

I have been a user of Uber since October 2013. I miss the direct payment from credit cards without OTP. It was hassle free and a selling point for Uber

Most of the drivers now ask for destination by calling you. This was not happening in early days of Uber. They need to impart more training to the partners.

With a CNG kit, it becomes difficult to do a airport run with family due to bags. Once I was trying to book Uber at T2, Mumbai airport late night around 2300h. Either the drivers were very far away where I cancelled the booking or drivers were cancelling booking after they called me and came to know my destination. I complained about two drivers who did that with me to Uber. Finally a driver accepted a ride who was like standing in front of me . He accepted it. During the ride, he told me three users canceled the ride themselves as luggage was not getting fit in back of his CNG fitted Swift Dzire. We were traveling light and with surge fare ON, he took us to our destination.

So have you faced this situation at airports?

I will be more careful now with rating and write the feedback.

I was once trekking with ex-CFO of Ola in Himalayas few years back and got interesting insights about funding for Ola, the behaviour of founders of Ola and the fiasco when they launched the wallet on Ola App for first time.

[AkMar]

Originally Posted by Prafful_Rathod

2nd point about AC, I have noticed this with Uber Go - WagonR particularly. Almost all the WagonR which i have got in Uber have had poor ACs or may be just a coincidence or may be driver frequently switching it off to save money !!

I fully agree. I have found WagonR ACs to be quite weak in almost all my rides irrespective of the aggregator (Ola or Uber). Blower speed 1 & 2 are inadequate for rear passengers to be comfortable. And no the drivers did not switch off AC when I experienced this.

[ashis89]

Originally Posted by Prafful_Rathod

2nd point about AC, I have noticed this with Uber Go - WagonR particularly. Almost all the WagonR which i have got in Uber have had poor ACs or may be just a coincidence or may be driver frequently switching it off to save money !!

Originally Posted by AkMar

I fully agree. I have found WagonR ACs to be quite weak in almost all my rides irrespective of the aggregator (Ola or Uber). Blower speed 1 & 2 are inadequate for rear passengers to be comfortable. And no the drivers did not switch off AC when I experienced this.

WagonR AC is not a chiller in the first place. And it feels more insufficient due to the large cabin size and those huge glasses all around you. Add to that a noisy blower in speeds 3 & 4, the drivers prefer not to use them. The other problem is the placement of the vents where the cold air hits the hands of the driver first instead of flowing to the body which make the hands numb.

[ashishy]

Very informative post, have some questions:

1) What is cancellation fee? How is it added and not deducted?
2) In cases where you take season pass of Tolls, do you still get paid for every trip? This would be additional profit right?

[Brumby]

Great information about app based cabs from Blackwasp and Nishant, hands on experience gives insights about how the whole thing works and answers a lot of queries for people like me who had a thought at the back of their minds to get into this business for some extra bucks.

I have started using app based cabs just recently, say a week or so. Experience with Uber was not so good as the driver didn't have sufficient fuel to complete the trip. When I asked why he took up the trip, he said he was not aware that I will be going for a long trip. I completely refuse to believe that. On a trip from Andheri West to Thane I was stranded at Powai lake waiting for another cab and paying much higher price for the trip. The app based help does not have such a scenario to complain about and I could not find the Uber contact number to reach them.

Ola cabs, usually are not clean enough to my liking.

Cheers

[nishantbhatia84]

Originally Posted by ashishy

Very informative post, have some questions:

1) What is cancellation fee? How is it added and not deducted?
2) In cases where you take season pass of Tolls, do you still get paid for every trip? This would be additional profit right?

Didn't quite get your first question here! What do you mean by 'added and not deducted'?
Cancellation fees become applicable to riders if they are to cancel post 5mins of booking a cab. In case you cancel due to an excessive delay in driver arrival, you can dispute the cancellation fees and in most cases it is refunded without any issues.
Drivers get paid cancellation fees charged to riders post commission deduction.

Answering your second question - the monthly pass for Mumbai entry points is around 1400 bucks. Assuming that the driver passes through one of the tolls twice a day, the total toll money he'll make is 1,750 which is not a huge profit! It's a win-win for both drivers and passengers as etc tags save time.
In my case - I used to pass through the sea link at least 4 to 6 times every day, and used to get charged just 150 bucks on my tag, but still made 60 bucks for every time I crossed the sea link while on a trip!