What are the top 4 best vehicles to drive rideshare in?
I have driven for Uber for over 6 years now and the best vehicle I have ever had and have ever driven is my Toyota Prius. These are the top 4 vehicles to drive rideshare in from my own personal experience. See, in rideshare driving actually any type of driving even just back and forth to work, what you want to purchase is the most fuel-efficient vehicle you can get your hands on. Then you want to search for and purchase that vehicle but with all the options on the inside that you can possibly find. That way you have a vehicle that is as cheap as possible at the gas pump but inside where it is actually important, is where all the good stuff is. Also, you need for it to have as much safety equipment as possible, for two reasons 1) is that when you enter the VIN number to purchase auto insurance you want your insurance company to give you credit for all of those safety features because that translates in savings on your monthly premium, and 2) in the event of an accident you need to be completely safe. Now that accident happened the day after my car rolled over 500K miles. I have viewed the footage from the impact of the accident and I could clearly see that all the safety equipment still worked perfectly which is exactly what you want. From my 6 years of experience while driving for Uber.
So with 1 Being the best. Here is my selection of the 4 best rideshare vehicles
- The Toyota Prius. 53 MPG and in these new 5th gen cars they added 100 HP
- The Honda FIT (Hybrid Edition) 49 MPG
- The Honda Accord (Hybrid Edition) 51 MPG
- The Lexus es 300 (Hybrid edition) 44 MPG
It is important that anyone considering any of these vehicles understands that these are all NON-PLUG-IN hybrid models. They all get the electrical energy from a battery that is recharged when the brake is pressed. That is the only place they get electricity from. A plugin model severely limits the range of the vehicle that is being recharged. The vehicles listed above are the only ones that I can recommend at all. The vehicle that is chosen to drive rideshare with. needs to get at the very least 40 MPG. Uber continues to decrease their pay to drivers and fuel is the only cost that a driver has any control over. I personally change the oil in my car every two weeks when I am driving for Uber. It is very important for anyone considering driving for Uber or Lyft to understand that driving in addition to a job, or to supplement any type of income, will cause the wear and tear on a vehicle to double, which means that the amount that will be paid for a mechanic to perform any work at all on a vehicle will also double. Also, the amount that is paid to fuel ANY vehicle is also going to double. This doubling will eat away any income that you earn as a rideshare driver. Also what will eat away at your rideshare profits is auto insurance and the fact that as a rideshare driver, you will be on the road a lot more so there will be a lot more risk to you as a driver because you will be on the road a lot more. You will get into an accident. I have been in 3 accidents over the past 6 years and NONE of them have been my fault. As the adage says, fault in a car accident matters very little if you are dead. I read a book recently by Dr. Peter Attia and he says in that book, he has worked in the hospitals over the years and he has seen the victims of car crashes and the person that usually dies or gets very badly injured is often the person that is not at fault. The person who was behind the wheel and minding their own business often is the one who ends up paying the price. As you can see from the footage of my dashcam. I was completely stopped at a stop sign and I was struck head-on by another vehicle there were two Uber passengers in the back so the Uber insurance took over, and Uber has no uninsured motorist coverage and they denied my Uninsured motorist claim because my policy wasn’t a commercial policy. If you have Geico commercial insurance there is some secret mileage number that if it is exceeded, Geico will drop you and they will never say anything to you about that number. Not before you sign up with them, and not even after they drop you. They just never say. I have tried googling it multiple times and I have been unable to get any answer at all. I am a full-time Uber driver. I do not do anything else, I do try to
Get income from other ways but in the past 25 years, I have been unable to make an online sale whatsoever. When I started driving for Uber in my first couple years the mileage on my vehicle was almost 100K in a year. I was with Geico personally before I started driving rideshare in 2018 and when I talked with Geico about rideshare driving, they immediately
made me cancel my existing policy with them and get a commercial policy with them. So I did, they force you to take a picture every year of your odometer and send it to them somehow. That is how I am able to remember the mileage I was driving then. Now in 2024, it is different. Last year that accident happened the day after my car hit 500K miles. Right now, it has only 547K miles on it. That means in a year I drove a total of only 47000 miles which is good for a single year. That is probably right around the mileage that will be driven by a rideshare driver who is just supplementing their other income. Progressive told me that the Rideshare “Rider” that I also have on my insurance policy only covers me while I am on the way to pick up a passenger and as soon as a passenger gets in my vehicle then the Uber policy takes over.
In Conclusion: The vehicle that you choose to drive rideshare in is VERY important. The vehicle that you have right now may or may not be the best thing for driving a lot of miles. The thing about rideshare driving is that, once you are approved to drive for Uber or Lyft then it is very easy to just go online and start earning. The revenue that you have to pay for each trip tends to be outrageous and now that Hyperinflation has touched everything, the efficiency of the vehicle that you drive is EXTREMELY important. Just remember that also after each trip the passenger judges/rates you as a driver and often they hear noises from other vehicles on the road and they rate you based on that. So fuel efficiency, safety, and ongoing maintenance costs are very important in a rideshare vehicle.