by Deepak Shenoy, Capital Mind In my last post on Uber, I spoke of economics and we’ve had some extremely good arguments countering some of the economics. I’m always malleable, so if there’s a solid argument stating a case against me, I’m always open to change. 1. What About The Cost of Owning A Car? I spoke of the price per kilomoter for taking an Uber versus taking your own car, and Uber’s costs came to 13Km + per kilometer. Using your own car costs about Rs. 6 per kilometer – and if you added the rest up (About Rs. 0.5 per km as insurance, Rs. 1 per km as maintenance), you’d still pay less than an Uber. But there’s a larger cost: the cost of the car itself, which according to many people will be Rs. 10 per kilometer, if you assume a cost of Rs. 5 lakh over 50,000 kilometers over 5 years. I don’t agree with this for many reasons. I’m not selling my car, because: a) You can’t depend on a Uber or Ola: They take time, they can’t find your place, and if you need to move urgently, you’re not going to find one. When their incentives diminish, you will find they crib just like autos about not coming to some place or the others. (Editor: they're also getting violent) b) It’s terrible for short distances: The concept of waiting 10 minutes to travel for five minutes to take my kids to a swimming class,…
