Is Your State On The List? The Top 10 States Rideshare Users Are Losing Patience
Ridesharing is becoming increasingly common, and companies like Waymo and Tesla are advancing the service by integrating autonomous technology. However, a new study reveals that some states are far better than others when it comes to this platform's customer support. Blakely Law Firm analyzed online search trends across all 50 U.S. states for over 10 keywords related to "Uber Customer Support" and "Lyft Customer Support."
Using data from Google Keyword Planner, the research identified where rideshare users are most actively seeking help, ranking states based on average monthly support-related searches per 100,000 residents. The top ten states where riders are most desperately seeking support, ranked from worst to best, were Georgia, New York, Maryland, Nevada, Illinois, Florida, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Texas.
Regarding the second-worst ranked state, New York, a spokesperson at Blakeley Law Firm said: "New York is showing a clear sign of growing frustration among rideshare users who are increasingly turning to the internet in search of customer support. Behind each search is a rider facing an unresolved issue-whether it's a billing error, a safety concern, or a lost item. The high concentration of support-related searches in this state suggests deeper systemic concerns with how quickly and effectively these services respond to user needs. To improve the customer experience and restore rider trust, it's essential for rideshare companies operating in New York to invest in more accessible support channels, streamline issue resolution processes, and provide clearer guidance to users facing challenges."
New York City residents also face expensive rideshare service charges, with a one-way run from Manhattan to JFK costing anywhere from $75 to over $100. However, the state's unfavorable placement at the top of this study's rankings could be partially attributed to how companies like Lyft and Uber treat their drivers.
A Bloomberg investigation last October found that Uber and Lyft routinely locked drivers out of their apps to erase some of the drivers' working time from records, allowing the companies to boost profits and circumvent New York City's minimum pay rule. The city's minimum pay rule for rideshare drivers is based on the ratio of time spent driving versus waiting. Locking workers out of the apps made it appear as if drivers were busier, reducing the minimum amounts Uber and Lyft had to pay. This week, New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission voted to raise minimum pay standards for Uber and Lyft drivers by 5% and adopt new regulations curbing app lockouts.
While states like New York were surveyed as struggling with rideshare service satisfaction among customers, recent changes to New York City laws aiding drivers could boost the platform's quality of service, reducing the likelihood of problems emerging requiring customer support. Still, according to the survey, companies like Uber and Lyft need to improve response times in several states and provide more precise guidance to those seeking assistance.
It's also fair to wonder why these resources weren't available when these two companies posted their strongest financial results ever in 2024. Uber and Lyft's reported customer service struggles in states like Georgia also give emerging autonomous rideshare players, such as Waymo, a chance to enter these markets and gain traction with quality rider support.
Copyright 2025 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Should You Buy Carnival Stock While It's Below $30?
Carnival reported another fantastic quarter, with Q2 revenue beating Wall Street estimates and a record level of customer deposits. Rising profits have given management the ability to pay down debt, leading to stronger credit quality. Shares continue to trade at a compelling valuation. 10 stocks we like better than Carnival Corp. › After being decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Carnival (NYSE: CCL) has been sailing smoothly. Demand has bounced back tremendously. This has helped drive shares 137% higher in the past three years (as of June 26). The business just reported another fantastic quarter. Revenue increased 9.5% year over year to $6.3 billion. Diluted earnings per share (EPS) skyrocketed 500% to $0.42. Both of these headline figures came in ahead of Wall Street expectations. It's easy to remain bullish on Carnival. Should you buy this cruise stock while it's below $30 per share? Carnival ended the latest fiscal quarter on May 31 with $8.5 billion in customer deposits, an all-time record. Occupancy and pricing are strong as well. The demand Carnival is seeing from customers is interesting because this isn't the case across the travel industry. Demand for hotels and airlines could be under pressure throughout the rest of 2025. Both Uber and Airbnb registered slower revenue growth in the first three months of 2025 than in the final quarter of 2024. This could signal tougher times ahead, as macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty lingers. There's clearly something about cruises that keeps drawing customers in. Affordability could be one factor. Compared to land-based travel alternatives, cruises are cheaper and give travelers more value. Zooming out, the industry is bringing in younger and first-time cruise travelers. That's an extremely encouraging sign, as it highlights an expanding opportunity set of potential customers. The leadership team raised full-year guidance across the board. Of note, they expect better net yields and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) than just three months ago. "We continue to set ourselves up well for 2026 and beyond, with so much more potential to take our margins, returns and results even higher over time," CEO Josh Weinstein said in the earnings press release. Carnival is positioning itself to keep capturing demand. Its Celebration Key private island destination will open in July, and an updated rewards program will be introduced in 2026. It's generally a smart move for investors to avoid owning businesses that have high levels of debt. As of May 31, Carnival carried $27.3 billion of long-term debt on the balance sheet. While that might be cause for concern at first glance, the company's financial situation continues to improve dramatically. This creates a positive setup for investors. Carnival's debt load is down from a peak of nearly $35.1 billion less than three years ago. In the latest fiscal quarter, its credit rating was upgraded by both S&P Global and Fitch. Carnival can pay down its debt because profits are surging. Net income jumped 514% in Q2, supported by operating expenses that were up just 2%. Carnival has now beaten Wall Street adjusted EPS estimates in 11 straight quarters. And the leadership team once again raised guidance, expecting 40% year-over-year adjusted net income growth. Carnival shares have crushed the market in recent years. They are up a whopping 46% in the last 11 weeks, but the valuation still doesn't look expensive. Shares trade at a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.9. That's a very compelling proposition. While it can be easy to focus only on the positive trends with Carnival, investors should be mindful of risks. One obvious factor that should always be on investors' minds is the broader economy. Should there be a severe recession, I wouldn't be surprised if consumers look to tighten up their purse strings. Even understanding this risk, Carnival is a smart buy, with its shares trading under $30. Before you buy stock in Carnival Corp., consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Carnival Corp. wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $713,547!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $966,931!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,062% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 177% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 23, 2025 Neil Patel has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Airbnb, S&P Global, and Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool recommends Carnival Corp. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Should You Buy Carnival Stock While It's Below $30? was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Tesla's primitive robotaxis are driving in Texas. Will they come to San Francisco next?
When Tesla rolled out a primitive robotaxi service Sunday in Austin, Texas, it took the reverse approach of its competitors. While other companies, such as Waymo, highlight their time-intensive engineering and heavy investments in safety and reliability, experts have marveled at Tesla's more radical philosophy: Scrap the sophisticated hardware, put full faith in AI, deploy in places that don't have a lot of rules. It all seemed very seat-of-the-pants, befitting Tesla's brash chief executive, Elon Musk. And the first days were messy. Viral videos of the robotaxis depict basic fumbles, like the car pulling up nearly a block away from its pickup spot. Though the erratic behavior echoed early phases of Waymo and General Motors' self-driving subsidiary, Cruise, Tesla's mishaps drew immediate derision. By Wednesday, commenters on the social media site Reddit had put together a list of captured-on-video mishaps in Austin, where at least one robotaxi had dropped its passenger off in the middle of an intersection. Such scenes have raised doubts about Tesla's ability to expand its business to California, a more tightly regulated state with tantalizing urban markets, including San Francisco, the epicenter of autonomous car technology. Industry watchers are now divided over whether Tesla needs to crack those markets if it aims to be a player in the driverless taxi sector. 'They have a very long road before they can even consider California,' said University of San Francisco engineering professor William Riggs. He characterized Musk's style as bullish, and grounded in 'a really bold prediction.' It just might work, he said. Clearly, Tesla had eyed the populous West Coast state long before the company sent its tiny fleet of modified, self-driving, electric Model Ys to pick up passengers in Austin. In a sign of ambition, Tesla obtained a permit with California's Department of Motor Vehicles to test autonomous automobiles in 2015. This year the company secured a separate permit from the California Public Utilities Commission to serve as a charter party carrier, or taxi. Yet, even with those initial steps locked down, Tesla is following a jagged path from Austin's scrappy Silicon Hills to the original Silicon Valley. And some observers are puzzled by the company's new way of doing business. As a titan of electric cars, Tesla initially focused on high-performance luxury models before shifting to mass-market products. But as a robotaxi venture, Tesla did the opposite: The company took its most recent suburban utility vehicle, upgraded the software and slapped a flashy logo on the side. Thus, a new ride-hail service was born. 'Everybody else's plan is, make it work first, then make it cheap,' said Brad Templeton, a Sunnyvale-based self-driving car consultant. 'Tesla is saying, 'It's gotta be cheap on Day One. We gotta make it work with the cheapest hardware.'' From Templeton's perspective, Tesla made a big gamble with cars that operate chiefly on 'computer vision,' combining cameras with machine-learning. Lacking the intricate LiDAR sensors and high-definition maps on which Waymo vehicles are trained, Teslas instead build maps on the go. Tesla robotaxis might drive up to an intersection in Austin and 'feel out' where the lanes are, Templeton said. Waymos, by contrast, 'know' every crack in the road. Tesla's methodology wouldn't fly in a state with complicated policies and politics and road conditions. But it might fit well in suburbs and rural areas that are less penetrated by technology, particularly if the people there are car-dependent and lack adequate public transit, Riggs said. 'There's too much regulatory friction in California,' Riggs conceded. 'Tesla doesn't have to come.' During an earnings call in April, Musk touted the shrewdness of his strategy. 'Generalized' artificial intelligence would be more adaptable, and easier to scale, he said, than 'very expensive sensors and high precision maps' developed for specific areas. 'Once we can make it work in a few cities in America, we can make it work anywhere in America,' Musk said. 'Once we can make it work in a few cities in China, we can make it work anywhere in China. Likewise in Europe, limited only by regulatory approvals.' (To date, Tesla has not announced any robotaxi testing outside Texas.) After the call, Tesla saw a fleeting rise in share values. Austin's robotaxi debut had a frat party vibe. A fleet of roughly a dozen vehicles provided rides to an invite-only group of influencers and Tesla enthusiasts. Trips cost a flat rate of $4.20, a reference either to marijuana or 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.' The videos posted online show passengers galloping up to the electric SUVs, craning cellphones to film steering wheels that turned by themselves. But Musk had failed to deliver on some of the promises he'd made in the earnings call. He had hyped the modified Model Y taxis as 'fully autonomous,' meaning they don't need human intervention. He had even claimed that with a software update, regular Model Y owners could convert their cars into robotaxis. In reality, the robots that cruised Austin streets this week came with with babysitters: Tesla had assigned safety monitors to sit in the front passenger seats. These shotgun riders are not compelled by Texas regulators, and have led to confusion over whether they are needed for emergencies, or merely there for optics. The company's push to full autonomy will face challenges in September, when a new Texas law takes effect, requiring a state permit for self-driving vehicles, and mandating that they comply with traffic laws. With the new oversight, it appears Tesla's wings 'were clipped significantly,' said Cameron Gieda, a mobility executive who specializes in autonomous vehicles. For all of Musk's daunting ideas, the real 'moon shot,' as Templeton sees it, is a commercial ride service that doesn't need human supervision. Other companies are far ahead: By next year, Waymo will operate driverless taxis in at least seven U.S. cities, while Amazon's Zoox, which just opened a second Bay Area factory, will soon offer rides in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Austin and Miami. Ultimately, Musk's chance of success depends on whether he can move beyond Austin to dense areas of California or New York, Gieda said. Getting there won't be easy. Whereas Texas is just starting to clamp down on self-driving operators, California has two agencies that regulate them — the Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Public Utilities Commission — and requires six permits to run a passenger service in fully autonomous vehicles. The two that Tesla has obtained from the DMV and CPUC do not authorize its vehicles to drive without a human. And then there's the political climate. Long a polarizing figure, Musk recently faced an intense backlash in California and other blue states for being an erstwhile adviser to President Donald Trump. As the Tesla CEO installed himself in the White House and led an aggressive campaign to torch federal programs and agencies, owners of Teslas began putting anti-Elon stickers on their bumpers. Some traded their cars in for other brands. Sales of what had once been a pioneering electric vehicle plummeted. Though Musk's relationship with Trump has since unraveled, it doesn't mean disenchanted consumers will forgive him. Tesla's brand identity is particularly shaky in metropolitan regions anchored by San Francisco and Los Angeles. The company will have to saturate those areas with robotaxis if it seeks to challenge Waymo, which now logs more than 250,000 fares each week. Tesla is 'under a microscope' in a way that Waymo and other companies never were, wrote Phil Koopman, an associate professor of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, in a post on his personal Substack. Koopman expressed concern about some of the errors: In one video, for instance, a Tesla robotaxi wobbles on a left-hand turn before bailing, then briefly veers into a lane of oncoming traffic. So far none of these errors has caused a collision or serious injury, and taken together, they aren't necessarily an indictment of Tesla, in Koopman's view. Nonetheless, he urged the company to 'get its house in order' before one of the vehicles crashes — and takes Musk's world-conquering plans down with it.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Uber Eyes Pony.ai Acquisition: Autonomous Vehicle Stocks Heat Up
As reported by the New York Times, Uber Technologies (UBER) is in early talks to acquire the US subsidiary of (PONY), a Chinese-American autonomous vehicle company. This move comes as Alphabet's (GOOGL) Waymo and Tesla (TSLA) ramp up competition in the robotaxi space, pressuring Uber to strengthen its position in autonomous transportation. The autonomous vehicle race is accelerating as the technology becomes increasingly viable. Uber already partners with Waymo to operate autonomous taxis in several cities, while Tesla recently launched a beta version of its own robotaxi service. If Uber moves forward with the acquisition, it could gain a deeper foothold in the self-driving space, complementing its existing distribution dominance with greater control over core AV technology. Uber Technologies remains my personal favorite horse in this race and the market seems to agree, as its stock has been far outperforming its competitors and the broad market year-to-date. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Uber's approach to autonomous vehicles seems to offer a structural edge over competitors like Waymo and Tesla. Unlike those companies, which are heavily invested in building and owning both the vehicles and the technology, Uber operates an asset-light platform model. It doesn't need to own the cars, it owns the distribution layer through its globally scaled app and now, potentially, a stake in proprietary AV technology via a acquisition. This combination, controlling both the customer interface and the core routing technology, without tying up capital in vehicle manufacturing, gives Uber a potential path to superior margins. As autonomous vehicles scale, Uber can integrate them into its platform with minimal incremental cost. It's a hybrid strategy that could prove far more efficient and profitable than vertically integrated models, especially in the early innings of widespread autonomous vehicle adoption. Even without factoring in the enormous upside potential from autonomous vehicles, Uber Technologies already offers a highly compelling investment case based on its core fundamentals. After years of operating in the red, Uber has decisively turned the corner. The company is now not only profitable, but in fact gushing substantial cash, marking a major inflection point in its financial trajectory. Shares currently trade at a reasonable 31x forward earnings, which is attractive given Uber's scale, improving margins, and dominant market position. Analysts expect Uber's earnings to grow at an impressive 27.2% annually over the next three to five years, driven by strong execution across all business segments. Uber's leadership in ride-hailing is well known, but it also dominates in adjacent verticals like food delivery (Uber Eats) and has built a growing presence in freight and logistics, giving it a diversified revenue base and multiple long-term growth levers. For investors looking to gain exposure to the autonomous vehicle revolution, I believe Uber Technologies stands out as the most compelling opportunity. Its asset-light platform, growing profitability, and potential acquisition of give it a unique position in the space, combining massive scale with increasing control over AV technology, all while maintaining capital efficiency. Alphabet, through its ownership of Waymo, is also worth considering. Waymo remains a clear technology leader in autonomous driving, with active commercial operations in several US cities. However, Waymo represents only a small fraction of Alphabet's sprawling business, making it difficult for investors to gain targeted AV exposure through GOOGL alone. Tesla, meanwhile, continues to push toward autonomy with its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, but progress has been slower than expected. While it's never wise to underestimate Elon Musk, Tesla's AV development remains behind Waymo and Uber in terms of real-world deployment. Ultimately, Uber is best positioned to capitalize on the AV boom, offering investors a direct play on self-driving technology layered atop an already profitable and dominant global mobility platform. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) : Free Stock Analysis Report Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Uber Technologies, Inc. (UBER) : Free Stock Analysis Report Pony AI Inc. - Sponsored ADR (PONY) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
