Ride-hailing twice the cost of car ownership
Ride-hailing services are a popular and convenient transportation option, but a new AAA analysis shows they are not a cost-effective replacement for vehicle ownership.
According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, the average driver in an urban area – the only setting in which using these services are a practical fulltime transportation option – drives 10,841 miles per year.
While urban drivers travel fewer miles than those living in smaller towns or rural areas, relying on ride-hailing services as a primary mode of transportation would cost $20,118 annually. This equates to more than twice the cost of owning a personal vehicle, even when factoring in the expense of fuel, insurance, parking and the vehicle itself.
“Whether you own a vehicle or not, ride-hailing services are a convenient transportation option,” said John Nielsen, managing director, Automotive Engineering and Repair. “However, with the average American city-dweller driving nearly 11,000 miles per year, a personal vehicle is still the more cost-effective choice.”
For the study, AAA analyzed the costs of ride-hailing services (including the use of an occasional rental car) in 20 major urban areas. Based on the average number of miles traveled by citydwellers, annual ride-hailing costs are as follows:
■ Atlanta $17,741
■ Austin $19,821
■ Baltimore $19,917
■ Boston $27,545
■ Chicago $22,020
■ Cleveland $20,091
■ Dallas $16,944
■ Denver $20,434
■ Los Angeles $17,951
■ Miami $17,339
■ Nashville $26,397
■ New York $21,279 ■ Philadelphia $23,201 ■ Phoenix $17,436
■ Pittsburgh $18,940
■ Salt Lake City $18,866 ■ San Diego $17,316
■ San Francisco $21,972 ■ Seattle $23,951
■ Washington, D.C. $21,093
According to data from AAA’s annual Your Driving Costs study, the average annual cost to own and operate a new vehicle, the costliest form of vehicle ownership, is $7,321 for 10,841 miles of travel annually.
Understanding that parking costs can be a major ownership expense for those living in urban areas, AAA also analyzed the costs of flat-rate parking per year, which ranges from $706 (Phoenix) to $8,088 (New York), with an average cost of $2,728. For those with access to free parking, relying on ridehailing services is nearly three times more expensive than vehicle ownership in these cities.
“For those who travel a very limited number of miles annually, or have mobility issues that prevent them from driving a personal vehicle, ridehailing can be a viable and important option,” continued Nielsen. “But, for everyone else: the car is still king.”
Vehicle owners looking to minimize their operating costs should consider the following:
■ Buy (gently) used – Depreciation is the single largest expense for vehicle owners. By driving a pre-owned vehicle in good condition, ownership costs are significantly lower. A safe, reliable vehicle can be found at an attractive price point.
■ Fuel responsibly – Avoid wasting money on premium gasoline unless your vehicle specifically requires it and, if you’re one of the 20 percent of Americans considering an electric car, these vehicles offer lower fuel and maintenance costs.
■ Show your car some love – It sounds counterintuitive, but spending money on routine maintenance can actually save you money in the end. To keep engines running longer, consider switching to synthetic oil and upgrading to top tier gasoline.
■ Slow down – When gas prices are high, small changes in the way you drive can make a big difference.
To determine the average number of miles traveled by a city-dweller, AAA’s analysis leveraged data from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety’s American Driving Survey. AAA’s Your Driving Costs data served as the basis for all car ownership calculations, factoring in depreciation, fuel, maintenance, repair, financing, insurance, license, registration costs and taxes. Total cost of ride-hailing is based on data from 243,838 economy-level, single rider trips in 20 U.S. urban areas and does not factor in costs associated with carpooling or multimodal transportation options.
On average, those using ride-hailing services spent an average of $13.15 per trip, spending 15.11 minutes and traveling 6.66 miles. Ride-hailing costs include the occasional use of rental vehicles for longer distance travel. Detroit Free Press
Henry Ford famously said a customer can have a car in “any color that he wants, as long as it is black.”
But black on self-driving cars could be deadly.
That can help explain why the May Mobility self-driving shuttles in downtown Detroit have a white base and why paint companies and carmakers have been working diligently over the past four to five years to get the color spectrum just right for future vehicles.
“Highly reflective colors like white are more detectable by lidar systems,” said Nancy Lockhart, color marketing manager at Axalta Coating Systems in Clinton Township. “Black will be the least reflective.”
The Light Detection and Ranging (lidar) remote sensors that use light to measure ranges in distance won’t be able to “see” dark-colored cars or less-reflective paint colors as well as the more reflective, lighter colors, experts say. That could be a significant problem — leading to crashes — when the roads are shared with autonomous vehicles one day.
“All the colors on vehicles today or road signs, road markings, are all designed for our eyes,” said David Bem, vice president of science and technology and chief technology officer for PPG in Pittsburgh.
Human eyes can adjust, thereby absorbing various light across color spectrums, Bem said. PPG has studied the aerospace industry for years to learn how sensor technology reacts to various colors and reflection. Bem said as the car industry goes to “sensor technologies or anything working off a wavelength,” the visibility spectrum across light to dark colors can impact how those sensors detect and react.
“Dark colors tend to absorb” light, making it hard for sensors to see, Bem said. But, “Those that reflect well have the opposite effect and can, in extreme cases, blind sensors,” he said.
Axalta and PPG scientists are developing and testing a full range of colors that will be visible to lidar systems in a variety of weather conditions and lighting.
The popular metallic colors such as silver create a challenge, because, “If you walk around a highly metallic vehicle, the color changes in different light,” said Lockhart. “So those colors tend to be more complex in determining how reflective they will be on the road because you have AVs coming at it at all angles.”
But the AV industry is so new that the lack of rules and methods for testing AV paint makes the progress for developing it slow going, Lockhart said. Axalta has devised its own test methods and devices to monitor how the various colors it tests will perform in different environments, she said.
“We’re working as aggressively as the industry will let us, but right now there is no pass or fail,” Axalta’s Lockhart said. “There are no regulations as to testing the AV detection systems, so we are looking at how do we best detect things. There is no worldwide testing unit or spec that says this is what you have to test.”
Axalta develops colors in Mount Clemens, Mich., and then sends them to a new technology center it built near Philadelphia for testing on the vehicles and in environments, Lockhart said.
PPG has developed a coating that allows automakers to better manage the reflectivity of specific light wavelengths, Bem said. Within two years, PPG will bring to market advanced coatings that will absorb less infrared light, but still provide beautiful color, he said.