Why I Sold My Car And Now Uber Everywhere (Uber vs. Owning A Car)

The Decision: Uber vs. Owning A Car

My car was over 10 years old when I sold it. I drove that car to 110,000 miles. Yes, it still had some life left in it, but it was becoming more and more expensive to own all the time - and replacing it meant either a big cash outlay or a payment (and we've covered why leasing usually doesn't make sense).

I was starting to have to make larger and larger repairs, and in the next 6 months, I likely would have needed new tires and brakes (both big expenses). I sold my car for $5,600 - which is honestly higher than I expected to get for it. If I'd wanted to keep it and offset costs, renting it out on a platform like Turo was an option, but selling made more sense for us.

Before making the leap, I actually tried out Uber daily to see how it would work for my morning and evening commutes. It gave me a great cost snapshot and let me compare Uber and Lyft pretty accurately.

Here's what my original 2017 cost analysis looked like:

What The Math Looks Like In Fall 2026

Almost every number in that original table has changed, most of them against the rider. Here's the fall 2026 version.

UberPool is gone. Uber shut down shared rides during the pandemic, and the replacement (UberX Share) isn't available everywhere and doesn't offer anything close to $1.99 fares. A typical UberX ride now runs $0.90 to $1.60 per mile, and a standard 5-mile UberX trip in San Diego runs roughly $9 to $17 before tip. For short trips, cheaper options like bikes and scooters can fill the gap.

Uber Pass became Uber One. The current membership is $9.99 per month, and instead of flat-rate rides you get 5% back on rides in Uber credits, plus discounts when prices surge. It's a much weaker deal for a heavy rider than the old $1.99 flat fares, though it pays for itself if you also use Uber Eats (which has its own economics - see our comparison of the food delivery apps).

Owning a car got a lot more expensive too. AAA's latest Your Driving Costs study puts the average annual cost of owning a new vehicle at $11,577 per year, or about $965 per month, based on 15,000 miles of driving. That works out to roughly $0.77 per mile - up from the $0.608 per mile figure I cited when I originally wrote this piece. Even a small sedan runs about 56 cents per mile, which is why the case for car ownership alternatives keeps getting stronger for low-mileage drivers.

The line items moved as well. Full coverage car insurance now averages $187 per month nationally, and about $202 per month in California - nearly 4x what I was paying in 2017. The national average gas price hit $4.15 per gallon this September, and even the best rewards credit cards only soften that blow.

So here's the honest fall 2026 comparison for a low-mileage driver like me (roughly 325 miles per month):

The gap narrowed a lot, but for my driving pattern, rideshare still comes in at or below the cost of keeping a second car - especially once you remember that a second car isn't free to acquire. The capital tied up in a vehicle could be invested instead, and depreciation is the single biggest ownership cost in AAA's data at over $4,300 per year.

What My Daily Routine Looks Like Now

Your first question might be, how does a one-car family actually function? Well, my routine isn't the same every day - even when I had my car.

We coordinate. My wife and I plan the week around who needs the car, the kids' schedules, and my meetings. When it doesn't work out, I request a ride. When we're going somewhere as a family, we take the SUV together instead of driving separately - which was true even back when I commuted to a WeWork office and ran this site as a side hustle before it became my full-time job.

The pattern that made this work in 2017 still holds: my rides are short, my schedule is flexible, and most of my driving needs are really the family's driving needs, which the SUV covers. For the rare edge case - a day we both truly need a car - car rental exists!

Full Year Of Ridesharing Actual Costs

Since I've been doing this for years, the spending history tells the story better than any single month. If you're considering the switch, expense tracking apps make it easy to see your own numbers before you commit.

For all of 2017, I spent $3,486 using ridesharing to get around - an average of $290.50 per month. In March 2019, I spent $293.34 across 24 trips covering 323 miles. What's remarkable is how consistent that monthly figure stayed, even as per-ride prices rose - mostly because my ride volume fell as more of my self-employed work moved home.

Here's the math that matters, though. At AAA's current $0.77 per mile average cost of ownership, driving 323 miles would "cost" about $249. But that per-mile figure only works if you spread the fixed costs over 15,000 miles a year. Car ownership is front-loaded: insurance, registration, depreciation, and the car payment hit whether you drive 100 miles or 1,500 miles a month. At my low mileage, the fixed costs alone exceed my entire rideshare bill.

That's the real lesson of this experiment, and it hasn't changed since 2017: the fewer miles you drive, the more the math favors going car-free. If you drive 1,000+ miles a month, own the car. If you drive a few hundred, run the numbers - you might be surprised. A mileage tracking app like Everlance can show you what you actually drive before you decide.

The Robotaxi Wildcard

Here's the biggest change since the last time I updated this article: the robotaxis arrived, and they're now part of the rideshare conversation.

Waymo launched driverless rides in San Diego on September 1, 2026, alongside Denver and Tampa, bringing its network to 14 U.S. cities. Access is rolling out gradually, and here in San Diego the fleet is Waymo's new Zeekr-built Ojai minivans, which the company says are cheaper to build and operate. That has real implications for anyone driving for Uber or Lyft as a side hustle, too.

Why does this matter for the Uber vs. owning math? Competition. Rideshare prices rose steadily once Uber and Lyft stopped subsidizing fares to chase growth. A third player - one without a driver to pay - has the potential to push per-mile prices back down. It also removes one of the long-standing objections to going car-free: not wanting to ride with a stranger.

I'm not ready to build robotaxi pricing into the monthly budget yet, but if you're on the fence about dropping a car in a Waymo city, it's one more reason the car-free side of the ledger keeps getting stronger.

The Biggest Cons Of Going Car Free

Taking Uber or Lyft everywhere isn't always great. There are definitely cons to going car free - the same trade-offs that come with any of the car ownership alternatives out there. Here are the biggest ones after nearly a decade of doing it.

Logistics

The number one biggest con is simply logistics. A one-car family requires more coordination. If I need the car for some reason, it means my wife may be stuck at home, and with kids' activities the calendar juggling is real. Renting a neighbor's car through Turo is the backstop, but the bottom line is, logistics are challenging - and they get more challenging as your kids get older and busier.

Waiting For A Ride

I've had instances where I've had to wait 15 to 20 minutes to get my ride. My work doesn't require me to be somewhere at an exact time, but that could be a struggle for those considering it. I've learned to check the app early and request ahead when timing matters. The upside: ride time is productive time. I've written articles, cleared email, and even planned out side hustle ideas from the back seat.

Pricing

Pricing is a bigger con than it used to be. The $1.99 flat-fare era is long gone, surge pricing is real, and tipping norms have shifted since I wrote the original version of this article - budget for it. I still cross-shop Uber and Lyft on almost every ride, because the cheaper app changes month to month (our Lyft vs. Uber comparison breaks down how their pricing structures differ). Membership programs like Uber One help around the edges, but nothing today matches the discounts heavy riders got in 2017-2019.

Final Thoughts

I get that ridesharing everywhere won't work for everyone. It depends on how much you drive (track it with a mileage app before you decide), the distance of your commute, whether you live somewhere with good rideshare coverage, and how much coordination your family can tolerate.

But here's where I land in fall 2026: the second car we never replaced would cost us roughly $400+ per month even paid off, and closer to $1,100+ with a payment. Our rideshare spending has stayed in the $300 range. And that comparison leaves out the biggest number of all: we never had to buy a replacement car. That's tens of thousands of dollars that never left our accounts - money that could go toward investing instead of sitting in the driveway depreciating.

The rideshare-vs-ownership gap is narrower than it was when fares were subsidized. If prices keep climbing, the math could flip, and the worst case scenario is still what it always was: I go buy a car again - and this time I'd know to skip the lease. But with robotaxis now live in my city and one fewer vehicle to insure, maintain, and fuel, I don't see that happening any time soon.

Have you tried ridesharing everywhere?