When Adam Potash started riding for Lyft six months ago to make ends meet, he was happy with the pay. The business was far from lucrative, but he made about $200 a day before paying for expenses such as gas and car maintenance.
But as gas prices have soared in recent weeks, Mr. Potash barely broke even. To compensate, he focused on driving during customer peak times and tried to fill up at cheaper gas stations in the San Francisco area where he works. He has also reduced his driving time from about 45 hours a week to about 20 hours.
“It hurts. I don’t have any money coming in,” Mr Potash, 48, said of his reduced hours. “But I’m not willing to operate at a loss.”
Gigworkers driving for taxi and delivery companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash have been hit hard by rising gasoline prices, as their ability to make money is directly related to driving hundreds of miles a week. And because the drivers are contract workers, the companies don’t reimburse them for the cost of refueling.
Some drivers say they’ve had enough and that the added cost of gas makes an already difficult financial comparison untenable. According to AAA, the national average price of a gallon of gas hit a record $4.33 last week. In California, where Mr. Potash lives, gas now costs an average of $5.77 a gallon.
“High gas prices are the final nail in the coffin,” said Harry Campbell, who writes a blog called Rideshare Guy and creates a podcast designed to help motorists. “Rising gas prices make a difficult situation even more difficult, and for many drivers it is the last straw that pushes them over the edge.”
In a survey last week of 325 drivers who track his content, Mr. Campbell said that he drove 38 percent less because of the high gas prices and that 15 percent had stopped driving altogether.
Some drivers across the country boycotted ride-hailing apps on Thursday, although it was difficult to say for sure how many participated. The effort, initially organized to raise awareness about driver safety, gave way to a torrent of frustration at how high gas prices made a difficult case even more difficult.
“We started organizing the poor safety issue months ago, and when gas prices shot through the roof, many drivers said, ‘We need to get up and get the companies involved in both,'” said Torsten Kunert, who advises drivers. . on his YouTube channel, Rideshare Professor.
Uber, Lyft and DoorDash say the total number of drivers is no lower. Uber said it now has more active drivers than it did in January. Both Uber and Lyft have added small surcharges to the price of rides in most places over the next two months, a change they say will help drivers compensate.
“We know drivers and couriers are feeling the sting of record pump prices,” Liza Winship, Uber’s chief driver of driver operations in the United States and Canada, said in a statement announcing the gas surcharge. Lyft echoed that sentiment in a blog post on Monday.
DoorDash announced a gas rewards program on Tuesday. Those who use a prepaid debit card designed for DoorDash employees get 10 percent cash back at gas stations, the company said, and DoorDash adds bonus payments depending on mileage. Grubhub also said it would increase drivers’ pay.
Both Uber and Lyft say drivers have made more money since the lockdowns were lifted than before during the pandemic or even pre-pandemic, even if they factor in rising gas prices. And both companies are promoting a partnership with an app called GetUpside that offers some cash-back rewards for getting gas.
Gridwise, an app that helps drivers track their earnings and data, found that driver earnings had risen nationally in recent months, from an average of $308 per week in early January to $426 in early March. But gasoline costs for taxi drivers have also risen, from $31 per transaction to nearly $39 over the same period.
Uber and Lyft say all of their new gas costs — 35 to 55 cents per trip for Uber and 55 cents for Lyft — will go to the drivers. But some drivers say the action is insufficient. According to AAA, gas prices have increased by an average of 49 percent in the past year.
“That literally offended every driver, and that was their first communication since gas prices rose,” said Philippe Jean, an Uber and Lyft driver in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania.
Jennifer Montgomery, an UberEats driver in Las Vegas, where gasoline costs $5 a gallon, agreed that gasoline prices “don’t even dent” fuel costs, which have been at least $30 more for her every day since prices started. to rise.
Ms. Montgomery, 40, said she became disillusioned with the job and started looking for other work that didn’t require her to drive. She’s cut her six-hour shifts in half because “it’s really not a profit anymore.”
“I don’t want to deliver anymore,” she said. “Especially when you have bills to pay and rising rent and mortgage costs, groceries — it affects everything.”
Mr. Jean usually drives for Uber and Lyft in the winter and spring, when his job as a handyman tends to slow down. He said he enjoyed dealing with passengers and usually made $300 to $400 a week, of which about $60 was to fill his tank.
Recently, however, Mr. Jean paid double that amount for gasoline and had to cut back elsewhere to make up for this, including by lowering his car insurance.
“I now drive Uber in hopes of not having an accident because if I do I will completely lose my car,” he said.
Due to the problems with the petrol prices, Mr Jean has started driving more in the short term, because people with cars with low petrol consumption have told him that they have stopped driving. With his hybrid Toyota Prius, he thought he could take over part of their business and still make some money. But Mr. Jean said he would probably give up Uber altogether later in the spring when his handyman work resumes, due to high gas prices.
He wondered if he or other drivers were benefiting from the ride-hailing business at all, after all the costs involved.
“Personally, I think if I sat down and did the numbers, it would be break even,” said Mr. Jean. “I don’t think we’re making any more money off it. I think I’m afraid to admit it to myself, because then I would definitely stop.”
