Around 5-6 times in the last two months, I’ve been lucky enough to get a Tesla when I’ve called a Uber Comfort. This makes me wonder, why are these Tesla owners working part time as Uber drivers?
Last time I checked, Teslas are much more expensive here than in the US, so some additional income cannot be the motivation.
Probably rented. Don’t know about Taiwan, but most Uber drivers in the west don’t own the cars they drive. Sometimes the car is owned by an ‘Uber pimp’ who manages multiple drivers. Probably against the rules.
I don’t think renting Teslas for Uber Comfort (only 10-20% more than a taxi) makes any financial sense. Also, I’m pretty sure for at least a couple of rides the drivers were the car owners.
You also have to think, regular people like nice cars too. If you spend your whole working day in a car, and you like cars, you are going to want to drive something nice.
It could be someone that actually owns the car outright driving at night to accelerate the loan repayments.
All the ubers have a red lettered plate, and they have taxi licenses.
Seems to me they are basically cab drivers.
I thought so too, but I think they were not. I talked to two of them about the car, and they knew a lot of details that a driver wouldn’t know.
Does a full-time driving job make you rich enough to afford a 1.6M+ NTD car? I think not for most people. But anyway, what confused me is that around 30% of my Uber Comfort rides were all Teslas - that’s too large of a fraction.
Perhaps paid for with a loan.
I don’t know anyone who bought their car outright.
Sometimes it’s just to be able to drive the car more and “show off”.
Cars are vanity items here in Taiwan. You don’t really need it unless you got a family or drives for a living.
I talked to one. said he is retired with nothing to do. Loves driving and wanted a Tesla, so why not make some money doing what you enjoy doing?
There are lots of people with so much money that they don’t know what to do with it. There are even more people who works 80 hour weeks and only make enough to survive, nothing more.
Being a uber driver does not mean they are poor. My friend back in 1995 just got his new bmw 525 (thats where tommy got his 525 from…thats bout the time i entered the internet…) and he stopped at a gas station to pump gas and he saw another brand new 525 parked there. The kid pumping gas into his car asked him what he thought about his 525…and seemed to know a lot about the car. Turns out the kid pumping gas was the owner of that bmw 525. He was from a wealthy family just working a 9 to 5 job for awhile for the experience.
And this same friend of mine told me he was in Ktown and saw this new office building and there was an old guy in the corner at the ground floor with a little beetlenut/cigarette stand. So he asked the old guy why this new 12 story office building would allow him to set up this little stall that seemed out of place…the guy said “why can’t i have this little stall?? I own this building”. Indeed he did, well at least the first 4 floors as well as the top floor. It was customary in Taiwan for the people who owned the land to get the first 4 floors of a building and the top floor in return for the land from the developers who built the building !!
You can’t judge a book by its cover !!
and about fancy taxis many many moons ago tommy hailed a bmw 3 series taxi and asked the driver how come he is using such a nice car for a taxi. THe fare was the same then.
He was an older guy and he said he had raised 4 kids from driving a taxi. And all four kids had become quite successful, two were doctors. And he retired for a few years but got really bored so he started to rent a taxi a few days a week and started to drive again. He wanted to be out there doing something and talking to people. He was lonely at home.
So his kids got together and bought him that bmw 3 series saying that now at least he can be driving a nice car any day he felt he wanted to drive.
And he did but only a few days a week when he got bored. He said he is so busy he was never without a fare. Back in the 70s there were not as many bmws as there are today on taipei streets.
Could be many things. The son of our neighbor drivers his dad’s car for Uber in the evenings (he goes to university in the day time). Its a 2 million twd car. Not sure what they had to do get the red plates but he says he makes good money doing it and its fun.