So You Want To Be An Uber Driver?

May 18th, 2023

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Quite a few of you may have considered getting a few extra bucks out of your car by signing up as a driver for the rideshare scheme Uber or one of the similar schemes, such as Ola. But is your car suitable for this?  What’s more, if you are seriously considering the possibility, then what do you need to know when you go to buy a new car?

First of all, let’s get the disclaimers out of the way. I’m not affiliated with Uber, have never been an Uber driver, haven’t even been an Uber passenger, and get the urge to spell it the proper German way as Über.  My family members aren’t Uber drivers, although my son once thought about it and my brother used to operate a bicycle rickshaw taxi (and he’s not even Chinese). I’m not saying that you should be an Uber driver or that you shouldn’t be an Uber driver, or that you should consider some other rideshare service such as Ola or DiDi, etc.  It’s completely up to you whether you should or shouldn’t, and I’m not going to give you any advice in that direction. 

However, what I’m hoping to do with this article is to let you know what sort of car you’ll need if you want to sign up to the programme as a driver.  Because this company values its reputation – and no wonder, as it involves (a) getting into the car of a stranger (b) who you have only met online – it has strict requirements for the vehicles as well as the people who drive them.  So if your car doesn’t meet the grade, you won’t be able to hire yourself out as a driver.

The first requirement is that the vehicle in question has to be no more than 15 years old, with the age limit dropping to no older than 7 years for the Uber Comfort service and no older than 6 years for the Uber Premier service.  So if you own an old classic, I’m sorry: Uber isn’t for you.  However, if you own a classic car in good condition, you can still get into the car hire game by making your classic available as wedding car – something that really deserves an article of its very own.

The next thing that this rideshare company looks at is the number of doors your car has.  Sorry, but if you own a hot three-door hatch or a two-door sports car, it won’t meet the requirements.  The minimum number of doors is four.

Seating is also one of the factors that is important, for obvious reasons. Single-cab utes are out of the picture and not just because they usually only have two doors.  They’re also out because they can only seat a few people, and the minimum number of passengers that an Uber (or should that be “a Uber”? Depends on whether you pronounce it Oober or Youber) can take is four.  Surprisingly, there’s also a maximum number of passengers that eligible cars can have as well, namely seven, meaning that the car can have up to eight seats (one for the driver, of course).  If you own one of those minivans that seats up to 12 people, it won’t be eligible.

All cars have to be in proper working order, which includes the windows and the air-conditioning (which would have ruled out one second-hand van I once owned and was very glad to get rid of).  It also should not have any cosmetic damage, as nobody wants to turn up to a party in a shabby rustbucket.  It also has to pass its roadworthiness inspection, but that’s true of all cars. 

Safety, as you can imagine, is very important, so one of the requirements for Uber cars, in Sydney at least, is that they must have a five-star ANCAP rating.  If you’re not sure if your vehicle does or doesn’t, you can use the handy search tool provided by ANCAP.  

Quite a lot of vehicles meet the criteria, so a wide range of vehicles is part of the Uber “fleet” (you could quite justifiably call that a private fleet, but we’ve bagged that name!). Of the many cars that are part of the system, the most popular are the following:

• Toyota Camry
• Toyota Corolla
• Mitsubishi Outlander
• Mazda 3
• Toyota RAV4

Well done, Sherlock… you’ve probably already figured out that this list of the most popular Uber cars overlaps with the most popular cars in Australia.  Which makes sense, statistically speaking. 

Different types of Uber service also have other requirements.  For example, Uber Premier likes not just late-model four-door saloons, but they also have to have extra legroom for passengers, take no more than four passengers and be what Uber calls “high end” vehicles.  What it considers to be “high end” is subjective, but all the usual suspects make the grade: BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Porsche, Volvo… 

Uber has a list of eligible cars for each category on one of its information pages (you can find it at this link). This list is pretty extensive and quite frankly, if you own a Ferrari, then you probably don’t need to pick up extra cash by joining a rideshare scheme. Unless you want to, of course!