You are correct. No car company "looks the other way". What the f*ck is that shit. These uber drivers are putting 20k to 30k miles a year on these cars, in other words, they are destroying these vehicles. They are absolutely not sellable after the lease and no one in their right mind would ever take over the lease of a 2 year old car with 60k miles on it unless the lease was for free. LOL. Most leases have VERY tight mileage restrictions. Why on God's green earth would a leasing company just eat the loss on a 25k car? For charity? The car is 100% not sellable. There is no rolling over of the lease, you're mileage penalty gets tacked onto the next lease like rolling your losing trading position into the next month. The $650 a month is a steal for these uber drivers who 98% don't even have enough credit to buy a dirt bicycle let alone a new car.
Leases have very specific mileage restrictions, however everything is negotiable. Having leased cars for over 20+ years, here's my experience: You can specify the mileage you want PRIOR to the lease, so if the advertised terms are "12k/year" you can sign the contract for 15k/year, or even 20k/year, it will just cost a bit more in payments, but still MUCH LESS than the mileage penalty for going over if you turned in the car at the end of lease. In other words, you don't have to sign a lease agreeing to the "12k" miles per year, EVEN if that's the advertised term. Just like prop firms, you're signing a contract, so you can negotiate the terms of the contract with the dealer, just as you negotiate the commissions you pay to the prop firm. Regarding the end of lease, if you are willing to finance the residual balance and keep the car, then you won't pay the penalty for overage on the miles (since you're obviously willing to buy the car, hence the dealer doesn't have to sell the car at auction or as a lease return on the lot). However, I was once offered an upgrade to an Altima back in the late 90's when I returned a Sentra with several thousands of miles over the lease terms (I can't remember the exact number). The dealer offered to WAIVE the overage IF I rolled into another lease for a new Altima. I declined and decided to buyout the Sentra instead, but that was an option at the time. (I was NOT charged for the extra miles on the Sentra since I was buying it out via financing the balloon payment). Regarding Uber and their Xchange program, I have no idea what the terms of the lease are with the drivers. From the articles, it seems like the drivers are getting a raw deal. If a driver is going to put 5k/miles a month on the car, and drive it to the ground, then I can guarantee you that the residual value of the car after 36 months will be much lower than what is stated on Uber's contract with the driver. So not only is the driver paying MORE than a standard lease while driving the Uber car, he's getting much less value on the back end if he chooses to pay Uber the remaining residual value.
I never heard of anyone being forced to drive for Uber. You sound like one of those guys who made 50k/year and bought a $900,000 house then blamed the mortgage company when you got foreclosed. If someone is dumb enough to destroy their vehicle for what amounts to slightly above minimum wage, then that is their CHOICE.
This seems pretty clear. People who think $650 per month rental for the kind of usage those cars get is "insanely high" must be living on another planet (one with a 1950's economy, perhaps?).
They are not getting hosed and here is how you can figure that out. Let them go into the open market and buy the car themselves. Oh wait, they can't, they have no money and no credit. I have a little experience dealing with people in this world with no money no credit and here is a spoiler alert, it's not good. LOL. Yes, you can negotiate your pre-lease terms (to a point). I would love for you to give me a place I can call today where I tell them I want 40k miles a year on my lease terms and have them not hang up the phone on me. Yes of course a normal person can extend the miles from 12k to 15k , hell even maybe to 18k which is a stretch but possible. But 40k/year? LOL. That will get you a dial tone. Prove me wrong.
I looked at the current Ford offer for an Escape. $219/36 months, 2699 up front. Spread the up front over the lease at 75 per month, $294/month. Mileage over 31,000 is 0.15 per. Lets say 31000 per year, that's 62000 over that is 9300. Spread the mileage over 36, $258/month. $219+$75+$258=$552. So uber is pretty close considering the shitty credit of the people that would go for this.
Many cab companies outside of the major cities, where you have your own car and they paint and equip it for you, charge you $250 a week to be a part of the company (like Red Top Cabs). You basically keep anything you earn over $250 weekly so you have to determine how much you drive and when. The Uber deal seems pretty normal, you pay $650 a month to be an Uber driver and keep everything you make which requires you to drive a lot (minus any % Uber takes out of your fares). You are driving a taxi, unless you drive every rush hour and weekend night in a month you are not going to be rich.
Maybe this is cheaper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_New_York_City Medallion taxicabs are named after the medallion issued by the TLC and attached to a taxi’s hood. Medallions were first issued in 1937 when the city created a licensing scheme, setting the number of cabs at 11,787. This number remained fixed until 1996. [70] Medallions are sold from the City at infrequent auctions, or by a medallion owner. They increased in price from around $2,500 in 1947 to$280,000 in 2004[71] on up through values of around 1million[72] to $1.3 million in 2013-14. [70] Because of the high prices, medallions (and most cabs) are owned by investment companies and are leased to drivers ("hacks"). An auction was held in 2006 where 308 new medallions were sold. In the 2006 auction, all medallions were designated as either hybrids (254) or handicap accessible (54) taxis. In October 2011, due to the longtime trend in the medallions' supply and demand, auction prices first topped $1 million.[73]
exactly Mav. Stupidity is alive and well. lol at people saying they can lease a porsche for that money, just how dumb can you be? they are leasing a *ucking taxi with 30k-50k pa going on the clock.