best choice what to buy to run UBER OR PICKME? BDT<4 MIL

[DrewDH]

This is a question everyone running a cab wan'ts to know. Are Wagon R's not wanted anymore, Hybrids are not worth it for running cabs? EK wagon vs Dayz vs wagon R vs any other decent none-Indian small car. Advice required...Thank you in advance

[vag2]

Is it possible to cover the Lease, with tourism income at almost zero?

[HaeylM]

  On 6/30/2020 at 5:57 PM, DrewDH said:

This is a question everyone running a cab wan'ts to know. Are Wagon R's not wanted anymore, Hybrids are not worth it for running cabs? EK wagon vs Dayz vs wagon R vs any other decent none-Indian small car. Advice required...Thank you in advance

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Consider its running cost and profit parameters before you make your decision. Most of the time when i end up taking an uber around colombo i end up hearing the driver mumbling about how uber is not profitable for their wagon R. couple of times I ended up having convos with them and apparently u have to look at around 80-110K on your car insurance( Basic premium+ Passenger service/Taxi car insurance or something of that sort+ Flood damage/Theft etc... ).  Then consider your depreciation on mileage, and regular maintenance intervals (expect to do around 100 or more KM a day to keep it viable). According to most these drivers they have to run around 8,000 km a month on part time basis to cover just the basic costs, and they need to do close to 12-15K for some basic profit. Not an expert here but i guess you might be better off running an indian petrol alto because of the cheaper parts, cheaper insurance and the fact that it doesn't have a huge difference in the fuel efficiency within city. (Even hybrids barely do 13-14 in city). Personally having driven an alto i can say its not as bad to use as a taxi since your car is going to go through some abuse when u are running uber.  From passengers spilling food to barfing on your back seat i guess it would be smarter to get yourself a car that you can sell off or scrap off later for a little difference on depreciation.

BTW this might be a bad time to invest on a car for uber though. Not a lot of people running around parties and events, nor the school kids and tuition kids these days so your target crowds are mostly people who are working and are on short commutes. 

[iRage]

  On 6/30/2020 at 5:57 PM, DrewDH said:

This is a question everyone running a cab wan'ts to know. Are Wagon R's not wanted anymore, Hybrids are not worth it for running cabs? EK wagon vs Dayz vs wagon R vs any other decent none-Indian small car. Advice required...Thank you in advance

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Hybrids are not worth it if you are not running a lot (the only reason why Hybrids made sense to Sri Lankans was because of the lower taxes Hybrids used to have). From what I hear and see, people are disappointed with the Wagon R because they bought a "HYBRID" hatchback and expected Aqua like performance and creature comforts (which is even a stretch for an Aqua). As we Sri Lankans typically do, we are discredditing ac ar after blindly buying it and putting it to use in a context it was never meant to be used in. The Wagon R is a kei car predominantly for in-city driving. The Dayz/EK Wagons are also kei cars so in the same class as the Wagon R. They do not have any serious performance improvement over the standard Wagon R (unless they are turbo variants..even then what you get in terms of performance is not the same as an Aqua or a car like an Axio).

Like the above posts suggest...it is not that the Wagon R is bad or a failure. It is just that we used it for something it was not meant for and expect even more. The issue is also the fact that people movement and tourism is low. So hires would be low too.