In order to get from A to B, people have been using the services of private transport companies for several years.

But while with taxis the price is visible through the taximeter quite transparently during the journey but is not known beforehand, with Uber & Co the prices are already displayed in advance via the app. Of course, this is particularly practical if you have tighter wallets - but how these prices are calculated is not always obvious.

There is now apparently evidence that Uber even takes the battery level of the cell phone into account in its pricing, as claimed in this sharepic:

Is Uber cheating on prices?
Screenshot: mimikama.org

Translated into German, the user writes on Twitter:

“The smartphone on the left has less battery than the smartphone on the right. Bolt, Uber etc. increase the price relative to the battery level (yes, they can and do).”

Unfortunately, the original tweet with the photo has been deleted , so you can no longer see whether the battery level is really low. But it has been for years that Uber ties prices to battery levels, and in 2016 even Keith Chen, head of economic research at Uber, said on the podcast “ This is your Brain ” that people are more likely to pay more if, for example It's raining or the cell phone battery is low.

[mk_ad]

Could the Uber app read the cell phone battery?

However, she can do that, she even has to. By reading the cell phone battery, the app knows when to switch to power saving mode.

Keith Chen denies it

According to CBC, behavioral economists at UCLA have found that passengers are willing to pay up to 9.9 times the normal price of a ride when their cell phone battery is very low. Keith Chen said this was an interesting psychological observation of human behavior, but emphasized that the company does not factor battery status into pricing.

Rather, dynamic pricing depends on how many drivers are requested in a certain area: the more people request an Uber, the higher the price increases in order to encourage drivers further outside the area to go there.

Conclusion

It is unclear whether Uber actually uses cell phone battery status as a basis for pricing. Although the left photo actually shows a higher price for the same route than the right photo, this may also be because the driver in the left photo may have been requested later and the price is higher due to increased volume.
Keith Chen disagrees that this method is used in price calculation, theoretically this would be quite possible.

To be on the safe side, we still charge our cell phone to the max before ordering an Uber. You never know… 😉


If you enjoyed this post and value the importance of well-founded information, become part of the exclusive Mimikama Club! Support our work and help us promote awareness and combat misinformation. As a club member you receive:

📬 Special Weekly Newsletter: Get exclusive content straight to your inbox.
🎥 Exclusive video* “Fact Checker Basic Course”: Learn from Andre Wolf how to recognize and combat misinformation.
📅 Early access to in-depth articles and fact checks: always be one step ahead.
📄 Bonus articles, just for you: Discover content you won't find anywhere else.
📝 Participation in webinars and workshops : Join us live or watch the recordings.
✔️ Quality exchange: Discuss safely in our comment function without trolls and bots.

Join us and become part of a community that stands for truth and clarity. Together we can make the world a little better!

* In this special course, Andre Wolf will teach you how to recognize and effectively combat misinformation. After completing the video, you have the opportunity to join our research team and actively participate in the education - an opportunity that is exclusively reserved for our club members!


Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )