Uber and services like it are posing a further challenge to car ownership in some cities.
In 4 of the 5 top cities, it is officially cheaper to rely on Uber than to own a car, according to an annual study on technology shifts.
Of course, it’s always been the case that fewer city dwellers own a car, but Uber’s cheap fares, may have accelerated the trend.
In New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington DC, it is less costly to use Uber for commuting and daily errands than owning a car. But in Dallas, it’s cheaper to own a car.
The findings come from a report by noted tech analyst, Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins, that also gives a glimpse of where tech culture is heading.
In 2017, in NY it cost $218 a week to own a car and only $142 to Uber to work and to run errands. In LA it cost $89 to own a car and $62 to Uber. Dallas was the exception with car ownership costing on $65 per week versus Uber use costing $181 per week. (See pg. 129 of the report here).
The report said US drivers keep their cars an average of 12 years versus 8 years back in 1995. And the amount households spend on a car is on the wane while the amount spent on a home and health insurance is rising.
There are a number of other important trends in the report:
- More people start product searches on Amazon now than on search engines.
- Voice technology is at a turning point as speech recognition is hitting 95 percent accuracy. Sales of the Amazon Echo exploded from over 10 million to over 30 million sold it total by the end of 2017.
- US adults spend an average of almost 6 hours a day online. This is up from 5.6 hours in 2016.
- As of this year, half of the world, or 3.6 billion people, are using the Internet, as Android phones drop in price and WiFi becomes more available.
- Smartphone growth is flat. Netflix is up 25 percent, Spotify is up 48 percent.
Source: TechCrunch, Kleiner Perkins
