So I take a lot of ubers to the office because I hate driving in Taipei and the bus is so crowded you can’t get on or off at certain times of the day. After riding in so many strangers’ cars, I’ve noticed a rather unpleasant car smell. I used to think it was cigarettes or mold, but neither one fits completely.
Anybody else notice this?
That odor plus the constant swerving and breaking of rush hour traffic really does my head in.
Garlic excretions from breath and body.
Comes from cheap biandan box meals along with any of the other ingredients.
perhaps plasticizers, perfumes etc? I get extremely nauseous in cars heavy in such things. same for peoples houses, businesses etc with lots of soft plastic furnitures. For example I get way more sick in a car than the hard bucket seat styled mrt. I love the mrt when in a city. Same for trains. I take the old ones over the new ones for exactly this reason, I dont feel fumigated by the end 
AC units if dirty are known to make a lot of people feel sick as well, have heard it is more to do with being dirty and possibly mold etc.
It is the leading reason I drive myself as much as possible now. regardless of extra cost, not getting sick all day is worth it! I even prefer wet on a scooter and.change at destinationthan sit inside a box of fumes 
I think it is smoke. It does not really smell like cigarettes, but it is. It can give me a very bad headache.
Binlang odor.
It is nauseating.
yes, binlang
Binlang also possible all over Taiwan but not so much in central Taipei as it’s discouraged by the companies and some of them don’t even allow it including Uber driver car rental companies.
Is that why uber is such a big thing, the betel nut ban? I still see many cab drivers with chew and smoke, even in the big city! Cant remember an uber like that though but I rarely take uber. Usually they use nauseating perfumes that hybridize with their smokers lung and make me gag harder than just a cup-a-chew
Open windows, no ac. Or bust!
I occasionally smell faint smoke in Ubers, as if the driver took a smoke break in his car with the windows down and didn’t think it would linger, but it did. I find it to be exponentially worse in regular yellow taxis, though, as with just about everything else.