Episodes

  • Co-ops, Commission and Earnings

    Co-ops, Commission and Earnings
    Feb 21 2025

    Drivers create an own app, Uber drops commission and earnings are down. LegalRideshare breaks it down.

    DRIVERS CREATE THEIR OWN APP

    Drivers are fighting Uber by launching their own apps. Business Insider reported:

    Sperry and several hundred fellow drivers in San Diego are exploring forming a cooperative. Instead of driving for the established apps, Sperry said, they would set up their own app, elect leaders to manage it, and create transparent policies around issues such as deactivating drivers.

    In some cities, driver co-ops already exist.

    In New York City, The Drivers Cooperative has been offering rides since 2021.

    Another, Drivers Co-op Colorado, launched last September. The co-op has about 16,000 drivers, and it guarantees them 80% of each fare that riders pay. Many ride-hailing drivers say they get paid less than half of the fare on other apps. The co-op's promise also represents a greater share than Lyft, which says it pays drivers 70% of the weekly rider payments they earn after fees.

    ZERO COMISSION FOR UBER IN INDIA

    Uber has adopted a new model for drivers in India. Yahoo! Finance reported:

    Ride-hailing platform Uber has moved to a zero-commission model for its autorickshaw drivers in India and will instead charge them a subscription fee, mirroring a strategy followed by local rivals as competition intensifies.

    Uber said it will now only connect users with nearby drivers and will suggest a fare but the final amount would be decided by the driver and the rider, the company said in a blog post.

    A company spokesperson said the company made the shift as it did not want “to be at a competitive disadvantage”.

    GIG WORKERS WORKED MORE / EARNED LESS IN 2024

    Gig workers worked more but earned less in 2024. Business Insider reported:

    Uber hide-hailing drivers saw their earnings for 2024 fall 3.4% on average to $513 a week, according to a study released Tuesday by data analytics company Gridwise. At the same time, Uber drivers worked 0.8% more hours in 2024.

    Lyft drivers, meanwhile, worked 5.4% fewer hours in 2024, but saw their pay decline at a faster clip of 13.9% to $318 a week.

    Meantime at DoorDash, gross weekly earnings rose 4.8% to $240 in 2024. Hourly earnings for those on the app fell, though, as the number of hours that gig workers spent on the app rose 5.2%.

    Tips were much less significant for ride-hailing drivers, Gridwise found. Gratuities made up just 10.4% of earnings, per the report.

    LegalRideshare is the first law firm in the United States to focus exclusively on Uber®, Lyft®, gig workers, delivery and e-scooter accidents and injuries. Consultations are always free
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    15 mins
  • Potholes, Robotaxis, and Fees.

    Potholes, Robotaxis, and Fees.
    Feb 14 2025

    Waymo barrels through a pothole, Lyft eyes robotaxis and riders pay more. LegalRideshare breaks it down.

    WAYMOS & POTHOLES

    Waymos went full speed through a pothole. Road & Track reported:

    Waymo's driverless fleet of Jaguar I-Paces tend to perform exceedingly well in normal driving situations — but a pothole in the middle of a San Francisco intersection found a weak point in its programming.

    Video from local TV station ABC 7 News Bay Area posted to YouTube last week shows one of Waymo's self-driving car absolutely sending it through a large pothole that formed at Lombard and Gough Street. The water-filled holes in the road — estimated to be a five-by-four-foot gap — look suspicious enough that a (reasonably intelligent) human would pause before driving through at full speed … but they probably just looked like big puddles to the sensor and LiDAR-festooned Waymo vehicles.

    The news report claims the autonomous vehicle caught on camera was just one of several Waymos ABC 7 saw slamming across the hole before construction crews could properly block it off from traffic. As depicted in the report, you can see that crews fully coned off the area eventually — which is likely all that needed to happen to keep Waymos from trying to barge through.

    LYFT TO ROLL OUT ROBOTAXIS BY 2026

    Lyft is rolling out robotaxis by 2026. Reuters reported:

    Feb 10 (Reuters) — U.S. ride-hailing firm Lyft (LYFT.O), opens new tab plans to launch “as soon as 2026” fully autonomous robotaxis in Dallas, powered by Mobileye's technology (MBLY.O), opens new tab, CEO David Risher said on Monday.

    Marubeni, a Japanese conglomerate with experience managing fleets, will own and finance the Mobileye-equipped vehicles that will show up on the Lyft app, Risher said in a post on X.

    $15 AIRPORT FEE FOR MA RIDERS

    Massachusetts is eyeing a $15 airport fee for riders. Boston Globe reported:

    Currently, Massport charges ride apps a $3.25 fee for pickups or drop-offs at Logan, which the ride-hailing giants then pass onto customers' fares. But the agency that oversees the airport is discussing hiking those fees to $5.50 each way starting in July, and then raising them to $7.50 each starting in July 2027, according to materials presented at a Massport board committee meeting on Wednesday and obtained by the Globe.

    In fiscal year 2024, which ended in June, ride app drop-off fees alone generated $15.6 million of revenue for Massport, up from $13.7 million the year prior, according to Massport's annual financial report. Logan Airport ride-app pickups and drop-offs increased about 14 percent in the same period, the report said.

    Josh Gold, the senior director of public policy and communications at Uber, said he was concerned that the eventual $15 roundtrip surcharge would batter consumers' wallets and cost Uber drivers reliable business. He also questioned why ride-hailing apps face higher surcharges than taxis or personal vehicles, which pay no fees to come and go and are, Massport's presentation says, the “most impactful mode to congestion.”

    LegalRideshare is the first law firm in the United States to focus exclusively on Uber®, Lyft®, gig workers, delivery and e-scooter accidents and injuries. Consultations are always free.
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    14 mins
  • Service Animals, Pay and Austin

    Service Animals, Pay and Austin
    Feb 7 2025

    Rides get more pets, drivers pay goes down and Waymo hits Austin. LegalRideshare breaks it down.

    UBER MAKES SERVICE ANIMAL RIDES EASIER

    Uber is making it easier to ride with service animals. The Verge reported:

    Uber introduced a new feature designed to make it easier for people with disabilities to ride with service animals.

    For years, Uber's policies toward service animals have been in accordance with state and federal law: they are allowed to ride at all times at no extra cost. But now the company is allowing customers to self-identify as owners of service animals in order to give drivers more visibility when to expect a furry companion. The new feature also includes a warning to drivers to avoid cancelling rides or discriminating against customers with service animals.

    If a rider opts into notifying drivers and a driver requests to cancel their trip at pickup, the driver will receive a notification reminding them it's against the law to refuse to transport someone because of their service animal and confirming that they wish to proceed with the cancellation. “Any driver who violates this policy may permanently lose access to the platform,” Yoon says.

    DRIVER PAY HAS DECLINED SINCE MIN. WAGE

    Driver pay has dropped since minimum wage was enacted. Boston Globe reported:

    Contrary to the idea that the new minimum wage would increase pay, a number of veteran drivers interviewed by The Boston Globe said their overall earnings have taken a hit since Uber and Lyft's new minimum hourly wage went into effect in Massachusetts. Intended to give them greater stability and, ostensibly, the ability to make more money, drivers said that instead the new earnings base seems to be functioning as a cap of sorts.

    It's not that these drivers are making below the new minimum, it's that it has become much harder to make more, according to 10 local drivers who talked to the Globe, some of whom said that, previously, with a little effort, they could average $40 or even $50 an hour.

    So far, data analysis of earnings before and after the new minimum wage is limited. But drivers point to several factors that could be contributing to the earnings pinch, including more low-paying rides and less surge pricing, which they say can boost earnings by up to 30 percent. Some report an increase in drivers, including from outside Massachusetts, possibly attracted by the promise of the new minimum wage, which would mean less need to use surge pricing to incentivize people to get on the road.

    UBER OPENS ‘INTEREST LIST' FOR WAYMO'S IN AUSTIN

    Uber is getting ready for Waymos in Austin. CNBC reported:

    Ride-hailing and food delivery app Uber is opening its “interest list” to users in Austin, Texas, who want to be first in line for Waymo robotaxis there.

    The company said in a statement that users will “be able to travel across 37 square miles of Austin — from Hyde Park, to Downtown, to Montopolis” — when the Uber-Waymo service launches soon.

    The list allows users to receive Uber updates and bolsters their odds of being matched with a Waymo autonomous vehicle upon launch.

    The Waymo rides in Austin will only be available through the Uber app, unlike in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where riders hail them through the Waymo One app.

    LegalRideshare is the first law firm in the United States to focus exclusively on Uber®, Lyft®, gig workers, delivery and e-scooter accidents and injuries. Consultations are always free.
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    17 mins
  • Waymo, Tesla and Antitrust.

    Waymo, Tesla and Antitrust.
    Jan 31 2025
    Waymo expands, Tesla goes FSD in June and Uber faces the FTC. LegalRideshare breaks it down. WAYMO EXPANDS TO MORE CITIES Waymo is entering more cities. TechCrunch reported: Waymo plans to start testing autonomous vehicles in 10 new cities this year, starting with Las Vegas and San Diego, according to The Verge. However, this doesn't mean the company will launch commercial operations in any of these cities — or even test them in autonomous mode. Waymo told The Verge it will send less than 10 AVs to each city, where they will be manually driven. Waymo is already operating a commercial robotaxi service in three cities — Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles — with plans to launch in Austin, Atlanta, and Miami this year. The Alphabet-owned company has not confirmed if it will launch a robotaxi service in any of the cities it tests in this year. Usually, Waymo sends a limited human-driven fleet to test across a broad range of city and driving conditions to get a sense of how its system adapts to new environments. TESLA LAUNCHES FSD IN JUNE Tesla is launching unsupervised driving in June. The Verge reported: Tesla will launch an “unsupervised, no one in the car” robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in June, Elon Musk said in an earnings call Wednesday. The vehicles will be part of a fleet owned by Tesla, and not customer's personal vehicles. (Musk has previously promised Tesla customers would be able to add their own vehicles to a “Tesla Network” for ridehailing.) They will be available for paid trips, and will arrive without anyone behind the wheel, Musk claimed. In its letter to shareholders, Tesla said its customers have cumulatively driven over 3 billion miles on Full Self-Driving (Supervised) — the company's advanced driver system — as of January. Tesla says that FSD (Supervised) is a precursor to fully autonomous vehicles, but the company warns customers that they need to continue to pay attention to the road since the system does not make the vehicle autonomous. The company also claims to have increased AI training compute by over 400 percent in 2024. UBER/LYFT FACES FTC Uber and Lyft have to respond to the FTC. Bloomberg reported: The US Federal Trade Commission is probing whether Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. illegally coordinated to limit driver pay in New York City, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News. So-called civil investigative demands, which are similar to subpoenas, were sent to both companies in the final days of the Biden administration. The demands compel the companies to turn over information within 30 days about an agreement with New York City officials over how drivers are compensated. Uber and Lyft entered into the agreement with New York City in July 2024 to reduce ride-share lockouts that had resulted in reduced driver pay. Gold, the Uber spokesperson, said there was never “an agreement or deal” with Lyft itself. “We were neither conspiring nor was our goal to limit driver pay,” he said. The FTC isn't investigating New York City officials. But a key focus of the inquiry is to what extent city officials helped in crafting the agreement and under what legal authority, the FTC said in the memo. The companies may have some defense because of the involvement of New York City's government, but more investigation is needed to substantiate that, according to the memo. LegalRideshare is the first law firm in the United States to focus exclusively on Uber®, Lyft®, gig workers, delivery and e-scooter accidents and injuries. Consultations are always free.
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    14 mins
  • This Week In Rideshare: Rideshare Insurance, Algorithms and AI Error.

    This Week In Rideshare: Rideshare Insurance, Algorithms and AI Error.
    Jan 24 2025
    Insurance chaos, gig workers with no control and AI has errors. LegalRideshare breaks it down. NYC TO STABLIZE RIDESHARE INSURANCE NYC is trying to calm the chaos of insurance. Bloomberg reported: Two of the bills would make it easier to adjust insurance rates and allow regulators to phase increases after American Transit was criticized for offering drivers premiums far lower than its competitors. The proposals follow a November meeting held by state officials and industry stakeholders to discuss solutions to address ATIC's insolvency. ATIC has sought regulatory approval to raise rates as part of measures to re-mediate its financial situation, though driver representatives and rideshare companies including Uber Technologies Inc. have warned it would increase drivers' expenses and make rides more expensive for consumers. COURIER ALGORITHM NIGHTMARE The algorithms for couriers have become a nightmare. The Guardian reported: This week gig workers, trade unions and human rights groups launched a campaign for greater openness from Uber Eats, Just Eat and Deliveroo about the logic underpinning opaque algorithms that determine what work they do and what they are paid. The couriers wonder why someone who has only just logged on gets a gig while others waiting longer are overlooked. Why, when the restaurant is busy and crying out for couriers, does the app say there are none available? “It's an absolute nightmare,” says the driver, adding that they permanently lost access to one of the platforms over a matter of a “max five minutes” wait in getting to a restaurant while he finished another job for a different app. Sometimes he gets logged out for a couple of hours because his beard has grown, confusing the facial recognition software. But similar frustrations simmer in Lincoln, where at 9pm one evening, Lucas Myron was delivering burgers, fried chicken and groceries when without warning a chunk of his work stopped. One of the two takeaway apps he used suddenly ceased to function. Without warning, half of the father-of-one's gig economy income vanished. FORGIVING AI Uber's CEO asks for forgiveness...for AI. Business Insider reported: Society will have to weigh up the acceptable level of errors from AI in real-world systems like robotaxis versus its potential benefits, Uber's CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has said. Khosrowshahi pointed to the safety record of autonomous vehicle giant Waymo, a subsidiary of Google owner Alphabet, as an example. Google's chief investment officer, Ruth Porat, responded that while Waymo's technology was “meaningfully safer” than that operated by human beings, “there is more forgiveness when it's a human” making a mistake. A report produced by Waymo in partnership with the Swiss Reinsurance Company said that its fleet of autonomous cars was safer than human drivers. The report, published in December, said that Waymo's cars faced 90% fewer insurance claims related to bodily harm. Still, self-driving cars have faced backlash amid some high-profile safety incidents. Last year, Waymo issued a recall after two of its cars crashed into a pickup truck, while Tesla's Full Self-Driving system has been involved in multiple incidents. Khosrowshahi asked how society should weigh up the mistakes of machines and algorithms “versus the benefits of AI coming into the forefront.” LegalRideshare is the first law firm in the United States to focus exclusively on Uber®, Lyft®, gig workers, delivery and e-scooter accidents and injuries. Consultations are always free.
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    17 mins
  • Tesla Data, Insurance Costs and Rider Safety.

    Tesla Data, Insurance Costs and Rider Safety.
    Jan 17 2025

    Tesla's data gives doubts, Uber fights insurance and PA makes rides safer. LegalRideshare breaks it down.

    TESLA DATA DOUBTS

    Elon praising new data for full-self driving may be misrepresented. Electrek reported:

    Elon Musk is praising data that he claims shows Tesla is on the verge of achieving unsupervised Full Self-Driving, when in fact, it shows it is still years away and he is misrepresenting it.

    Tesla has consistently refused to share any data regarding its self-driving progress. That's despite more recently starting to use “miles between necessary disengagement”, sometimes called “miles between critical disengagement”, as a metric to track progress and claiming x multiplicators in miles between critical disengagement in recent updates without any actual data to back it up.

    There are no prior versions of Tesla FSD over the last 3 years that would add up to a 3x improvement in miles between critical disengagement. We can forget about “5 to 10x.”

    UBER COALITION FIGHTING INSURANCE COSTS

    An Uber-led coalition is running campaigns to lower insurance costs. NY Post reported:

    Citizens for Affordable Rates is particularly supporting city legislation that would reduce the minimum liability coverage taxi and ride-share drivers are required to carry from a whopping $200,000 to $50,000.

    The measure is sponsored by Councilwoman Carmen De La Rosa, whose northern Manhattan district that includes Washington Heights and Inwood has a large constituency of for-hire drivers.

    Ride-share app Uber is bankrolling the group's first ads on TV/cable, digital/social media channels plus all the major streaming services (Amazon Prime, Tubi, Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, Sling, Paramount+ HBO Max Pluto TV) in the New York City and Albany regions.

    PROPOSED PA LAW FOR RIDER SAFETY

    PA is proposing a new law to help with rider safety. Penn Live reported:

    To make the process of getting in the right car more manageable and safer, state Representative Ann Flood (R-Northhampton) has proposed “Sami's Law,” which would require Uber and Lyft to provide a barcode or other machine-readable code on the outside of a vehicle to help minimize the risk of patrons getting in the wrong car.

    The safety of ride-share apps has been under criticism after the death of 21-year-old Samantha Josephson, in South Carolina in 2019. Josephson had ordered an Uber but got into the wrong car, which she mistook for her ride. The “fake” driver used child locks on the door to prevent her from leaving, ultimately kidnapping and murdering her.

    According to a Jan. 13 memorandum, several states have started enacting similar versions of Sami's Law. In 2019, South Carolina's Samantha L. Josephson Ridesharing Safety Act required ride-share vehicles to display license plate numbers on the front and penalized those misrepresenting themselves as authorized drivers.

    LegalRideshare is the first law firm in the United States to focus exclusively on Uber®, Lyft®, gig workers, delivery and e-scooter accidents and injuries. Consultations are always free.
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    16 mins
  • Robotaxis, $328 Million Settlement and NYC Pay Hike.

    Robotaxis, $328 Million Settlement and NYC Pay Hike.
    Jan 10 2025
    Uber gears up for robotaxis, drivers get paid, and NYC fights lockouts. LegalRideshare breaks it down. UBER/LYFT PREPARE FOR ROBOTAXIS Robotaxis are here and the rideshare giants are gearing up. The Wall Street Journal reported: Both companies will have driverless cars — from Alphabet's Waymo and others — on their apps this year. In the coming months, riders in Austin, Texas, and Atlanta will be able to hail a Waymo through the Uber app. Lyft plans to offer May Mobility's driverless taxis in Atlanta. Uber and Lyft once invested billions of dollars in developing their own self-driving cars. Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick used to say the company needed to lead the pivot to driverless technology or risk becoming irrelevant. Both companies gave up on the costly endeavor during the pandemic, selling their self-driving units. Now they are competing to be the platforms on which the robotaxi technology developed by others will operate. Uber announced more than five U.S. robotaxi partnerships in the past five months, covering Los Angeles, Dallas and other cities. Uber struck a deal with Waymo that will allow customers in Austin and Atlanta to hail the company's driverless taxis only through the Uber app, a move that will prevent the driverless carmaker from taking market share in those cities. Waymo will continue to operate its own app in other cities. $328 MILLION SETTLEMENT Drivers in New York are owed $328 million, but they have to act fast. NBC4 reported: New York Attorney General Letitia James is encouraging rideshare drivers who believe they were underpaid by Uber and Lyft to file claims on or before January 31, 2025 to receive the funds they are due under settlements reached by the Office of the Attorney General (OAG). In November, James secured $328 million in back payments for drivers after an OAG investigation found that Uber and Lyft withheld funds from drivers and failed to provide valuable benefits. Now, the attorney general has extended the deadline to file claims for those settlement funds to January 31, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. and is calling for all rideshare drivers to check their eligibility and submit a claim online before the deadline. New Yorkers who drove for Uber between 2014 and 2017 or for Lyft between 2015 and 2017 may be eligible to receive money from the settlement funds, which are being distributed in full to current and former drivers. Drivers who believe they may be eligible and have not yet filed a claim, or who previously filed a claim but did not receive a response, are encouraged to file a claim online as soon as possible. NYC FIGHTS UBER/LYFT LOCKOUTS NYC has a plan to fight Uber and Lyft's lockouts. Bloomberg reported: New York City is trying to close a loophole that Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. have used to deny drivers millions of dollars in pay with a raft of new measures that would effectively raise their rates by roughly 6.1%. The commission has vowed to introduce changes to its minimum pay formulas for Uber and Lyft drivers after a Bloomberg investigation in October showed the companies have systematically locked drivers out of their platforms to game those calculations and save millions in future pay. In its proposal, the commission said the lockouts have prevented drivers from “working and earning the daily income they were expecting to earn” and are “in clear conflict with the intent of local law.” Chief among the changes the commission is proposing is the way it sets so-called utilization rates, a gauge of the time drivers spend actually making trips versus waiting to be matched with riders. Those rates, which are part of the formula for driver pay and are currently supposed to adjust annually, were designed to ensure drivers were compensated for both trips made and the time spent en route to passengers and waiting for work. LegalRideshare is the first law firm in the United States to focus exclusively on Uber®, Lyft®, gig workers, delivery and e-scooter accidents and injuries. Consultations are always free.
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    17 mins
  • This Week In Rideshare: IRS, Self-Driving, and Lyft Sues San Francisco.

    This Week In Rideshare: IRS, Self-Driving, and Lyft Sues San Francisco.
    Jan 3 2025
    The IRS cracks down on gig workers, self-driving is here, and Lyft sues San Francisco. LegalRideshare breaks it down. IRS CRACKSDOWN ON GIG WORKERS The IRS made it clear it's cracking down on gig work. Gizmodo reported: In a sign that the Internal Revenue Service could be cracking down on gig workers, the agency has received authorization from a federal court to gather information from JustAnswer LLC about any U.S. taxpayers who received compensation through the platform. California federal District Court Judge Dolly Gee approved the agency's request for what is known as a John Doe summons, which seeks information about a group of individuals whom the the government hasn't already identified by name or other means. The summons seeks information about people who received $5,000 or more for answering questions on the JustAnswer platform in any one year from 2017 through 2020. In November, the IRS issued new guidance to gig work platforms instructing them to report information to the agency about taxpayers who earned more than $5,000 in 2024, more than $2,500 in 2025, and more than $600 in 2026 and beyond. Previously, gig platforms only had to report information to the IRS for workers who earned more than $20,000 and completed at least 200 transactions. The new thresholds are designed to make it harder for gig workers to avoid paying taxes on their income. SELF-DRIVING IS HERE 2024 proved that self-driving is here. But is it safe? CNET reported: Waymo plans to expand to Atlanta and Austin, Texas, through a partnership with Uber and is launching its first international testing in Tokyo. Zoox aims to open up to public riders, starting in Las Vegas. And startup Avride, which has also partnered with Uber to deploy its autonomous vehicles and delivery robots, hopes to launch a robotaxi service in Dallas in 2025. Lyft, too, is teaming up with autonomous vehicle companies like May Mobility, aiming to make its fleet of self-driving Toyota Siennas available to riders in Atlanta starting next year. Aside from regulatory hurdles, there's also the considerable challenge of convincing the public that self-driving cars are safe. That's why practically every piece of communication from robotaxi companies touts the safety of their respective vehicles and technology — especially in comparison to human drivers. A Waymo data hub published in September states that after driving over 22 million miles, its self-driving tech was involved in “73% fewer injury-causing crashes and 48% fewer police-reported crashes compared to human drivers.” A 2022 Cruise report states that “there is no ambiguity that human driving mistakes are one of the most substantial factors causing roadway injuries and deaths.” And in an open letter last year, Zoox's chief safety innovation officer noted that, “Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that 94% of crashes are caused by human choice or error.” LYFT SUES SAN FRANSISCO Lyft sues San Francisco due to $100M in charges. TechCrunch reported: Lyft is suing the city of San Francisco, claiming the city unfairly charged the ride-hailing company over $100 million in taxes, Bloomberg reports. The lawsuit alleges that, over the course of five years, San Francisco unfairly labeled money earned by Lyft drivers as company revenue. In the complaint, Lyft maintains that its drivers are its customers, not employees. “Accordingly, Lyft recognizes revenue from rideshare as being comprised of fees paid to Lyft by drivers, not charges paid by riders to drivers,” the complaint reads. The lawsuit is just the latest chapter in a yearslong debate over how gig economy apps should classify drivers. Last summer, Lyft, Uber, and DoorDash notched a win after the California Supreme Court upheld Proposition 22, which allows the companies to classify drivers as independent contractors, meaning the companies do not have to provide drivers with full employee benefits. LegalRideshare is the first law firm in the United States to focus exclusively on Uber®, Lyft®, gig workers, delivery and e-scooter accidents and injuries. Consultations are always free.
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    28 mins