Uber wait times up 19% and prices up 53%: the energy cost of getting around

Uber riders in six US cities waited 19% longer for a car to arrive and paid 53% more per mile on average between the first quarter of 2023 and the same period this year. The figures come from an analysis by Len Sherman, an executive in residence and adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, reported by Business Insider on 30 September.

The study examined 37,500 trips completed by drivers in six US cities. It used data from GigU, an app that shows drivers how much they will make per minute and per mile before they accept a trip. Wait times rose in five of the six cities, including Atlanta, Dallas and Houston. In Tampa, Florida, they fell slightly. Sherman said the figures do not include the time riders spend waiting for Uber to pair them with a driver, because he relied on driver-side data. "By definition, it's an underestimate," he told Business Insider.

Uber disputed the findings. "This analysis relies on a number of inaccuracies, which we've publicly refuted," a spokesperson said, declining to comment specifically on the wait-time and per-mile figures. The company pointed Business Insider to a January blog post in which it rejected the claim that it became profitable "by raising prices while taking an ever larger share" of fares.

Sherman's report also cites the 2026 Axios Harris Poll 100, which ranked Uber 72nd, down from 58th in 2025, with declines on trust, character and ethics.

Europe's energy bill is the backdrop

The ride-hailing numbers arrive at the end of a week in which European policymakers have been unusually blunt about costs. The European Commission has warned of "very high" energy prices and a "challenging" winter as gas stocks run low, according to RTE on 29 September. An EU Commissioner said the bloc paid an extra $113 billion for energy without receiving more gas or oil, a figure carried by Anadolu Ajansı on 29 September and repeated by Yeni Şafak English the same day. Xinhua reported on 29 September that the extra fossil fuel import bill reached 100 billion euros amid the US-Iran conflict.

The policy response has split member states. Italy and the Czech Republic are calling for softer EU rules on carbon permits and energy supply, Reuters reported on 29 September. Italy's prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, travelled to Prague for an Italy-Czech Republic action plan covering energy and industry, Agenzia Nova reported on 29 September. Spain, Portugal and Luxembourg, by contrast, are pushing Brussels for an ambitious and realistic renewable target for 2040, according to Demócrata on 29 September.

Heavy industry is feeling the squeeze. Italy's paper industry has asked for relief from energy costs, EUWID Pulp and Paper reported on 30 September. Westlake is shutting a PVC plant in Cologne as market pressures persist, ChemAnalyst reported on 29 September. Ineos has mothballed key chemicals plants, with Jim Ratcliffe blaming Labour, according to This is Money on 29 September.

What cheaper electricity does to a car market

The link between energy prices and transport costs runs in both directions. Transport & Environment published an analysis on 29 September arguing that second-hand electric cars retain their value better than the leasing industry claims. In the four largest EU markets, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, 2025 used-car transaction data shows a 12.9 percentage point depreciation gap between combustion and electric cars. T&E says five omitted variables, including subsidies that lower EV purchase prices and acquisition taxes that raise them for fossil-fuel cars, cut that gap by 80% to 2.6 percentage points.

The group also points to consumer behaviour. In Ireland, used EV values rose almost twice as much as petrol and diesel cars year on year in July 2026, according to the country's largest online car marketplace. In Germany, used battery-electric vehicle sales rose 64% year on year in the first seven months of 2026. T&E is calling on EU lawmakers to support the upcoming Corporate Clean Vehicles Regulation, which would set electrification targets for large company fleets.

"The industry is painting an overly simplistic picture of EV depreciation to justify opposing EU fleet electrification targets," said Stef Cornelis, director of the Electric Fleets and Freight programmes at T&E.

Some of the same pressure is visible on the supply side of the energy transition. Japanese startup Helical Fusion told reporters on 30 September that it expects preliminary power-on tests at its Helix HARUKA demonstration reactor in 2027, with full power-on tests of the integrated facility around 2030, Asahi Shimbun reported. CEO Takaya Taguchi said the company aims to build a commercial plant as early as the 2040s, but listed cost, safety and construction speed among the hurdles. The Japanese government has designated fusion as one of 17 strategic sectors and plans to invest 3.1 trillion yen, about $19.7 billion, in public and private funding by the 2040 financial year.

Not every cost story points the same way. Research presented at the SOSP '26 conference in September describes EnerTune, an inference-serving system that cuts energy consumption by 1.4 to 2.3 times and power draw by 1.3 to 2.6 times over state-of-the-art baselines while meeting performance targets, according to the paper. The authors, from the University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere, argue that optimising GPU clusters for utilisation alone can raise energy use.