I'm not sure how you can use a flat statistic like $9,100/year to own based on 12,000 miles per year driven, and then apply it to a Lyft driver. They could be driving 45,000 miles per year, in which case the $9,100 per year would go up, but it's not clear by how much. I would guess that there are large efficiencies there. There are another number of flaws with this logic:
1) Assumes that you only use your car for Uber/Lyft driving and that it is entirely valueless otherwise. If you were going to own a car anyway, you were going to eat a bunch of that cost to begin with. The extra costs are in the incremental mileage that you drive.
2) Assumes you are buying a brand new car, and uses averages for first 5 years. If you just start with a 1-year old car, that drops your average around 25% (from ~$9K to ~$7K).
3) Averages across a number of makes and models, including a number of luxury cars (pretty sure most people looking to earn $35/hour aren't in the market for Porches, Land Rovers and Mercedes Benz', all of which top out the scale being used in the consumer reports article). For example, a Toyota Camry would cost about $5,700/year to own for years 2-5 (http://autos.yahoo.com/toyota/camry/2013/l/cost.html), and around $7K/year for all first 5 years.
4) As stated earlier, assumes that a Lyft driver is just going 12,000 miles/year and that the rate $0.75/hour stays constant regardless of how many hours you drive in a year.
Not quite sure how to evaluate, and it's very possible that I may have estimated on the lower end. But, the methodology used in that blog post linked is pretty visibly flawed in a number of ways. Now I've already given this more thought than I initially planned to, but you're right that I shouldn't have off-handedly thrown out $5/hour without investigation. That said, it bothers me that the blogger you referenced put out an entire article (that was referenced on HN) that used such poor reasoning and assumptions using misleading data. All of which to come up with a bolded "$3.45/hour!!!" conclusion. /rant
1) Assumes that you only use your car for Uber/Lyft driving and that it is entirely valueless otherwise. If you were going to own a car anyway, you were going to eat a bunch of that cost to begin with. The extra costs are in the incremental mileage that you drive.
2) Assumes you are buying a brand new car, and uses averages for first 5 years. If you just start with a 1-year old car, that drops your average around 25% (from ~$9K to ~$7K).
3) Averages across a number of makes and models, including a number of luxury cars (pretty sure most people looking to earn $35/hour aren't in the market for Porches, Land Rovers and Mercedes Benz', all of which top out the scale being used in the consumer reports article). For example, a Toyota Camry would cost about $5,700/year to own for years 2-5 (http://autos.yahoo.com/toyota/camry/2013/l/cost.html), and around $7K/year for all first 5 years.
4) As stated earlier, assumes that a Lyft driver is just going 12,000 miles/year and that the rate $0.75/hour stays constant regardless of how many hours you drive in a year.
5) As far as I can tell, you can write off your expenses on your taxes, recouping part of the value as well (standard cost at 56 1/3 miles per gallon: http://www.irs.gov/publications/p463/ch04.html#en_US_2013_pu...).
Not quite sure how to evaluate, and it's very possible that I may have estimated on the lower end. But, the methodology used in that blog post linked is pretty visibly flawed in a number of ways. Now I've already given this more thought than I initially planned to, but you're right that I shouldn't have off-handedly thrown out $5/hour without investigation. That said, it bothers me that the blogger you referenced put out an entire article (that was referenced on HN) that used such poor reasoning and assumptions using misleading data. All of which to come up with a bolded "$3.45/hour!!!" conclusion. /rant