Uber charging customers new fuel fee for rides, delivery

Citing record-high prices for gasoline, which are ramping for the 13th consecutive day since Russia began its war on Ukraine, Uber is charging customers a new fuel fee to help offset costs for ride-hail and delivery drivers.

The temporary surcharge will be either 45 cents or 55 cents for each Uber trip and either 35 cents or 45 cents for each Uber Eats order, depending on location, the company announced Friday.

It will take effect on Wednesday. All the money will go directly to drivers, San Francisco-based Uber said, and isn’t meant to cover the entire cost of gas, but to ‘soften the burden.’ 

The surcharge will be in effect for at least 60 days, after which Uber said it will assess gas prices and driver sentiment.

The surcharges are based on the average trip distance and the increase in gas prices in each state, Uber said.

As Russia’s war in Ukraine has intensified, U.S. gas prices have reached record levels. The average price of gasoline in the U.S. hit a record $4.34 a gallon on Saturday (rounded up to the nearest cent), up from $4.33 on Friday as President Joe Biden banned imports of Russian oil, gas and coal in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine. 

Citing record-high prices for gasoline, Uber is charging customers a new fuel fee to help offset costs for ride-hail and delivery drivers

People holding signs protest against the rising gas prices at a Shell gasoline station in Santa Monica, California on Saturday

A spokesperson for Uber rival Lyft didn’t immediately respond to a question Saturday on whether it was considering a similar move. 

‘We know that prices have been going up across the economy, so we’ve done our best to help drivers and couriers without placing too much additional burden on consumers,’ Liza Winship, head of driver operations for the US and Canada, said of the new surcharges in a press release. 

The amount of U.S. gasoline in storage fell last week as demand starts to increase with summer approaching. The increase in gas demand and the lower trend in inventories are also contributing to rising prices at the pump.  

 The US imported about 245 million barrels of oil from Russia last year – about 8 percent of all US oil imports, up from 198 million barrels in 2020, according to the US Energy Information Administration. 

That’s less than the country gets from Mexico or Canada, but more than it imported in 2021 from Saudi Arabia.       

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday doubled down on blaming Vladimir Putin for soaring U.S. inflation, after the consumer price index hit another 40-year high of 7.9 percent in February, which Biden called ‘Putin’s price hike.’

‘It is accurate that the invasion by President Putin into Ukraine has impacted global inflation,’ she said, adding it affected inflation in the U.S. ‘because of the impact it’s had on energy prices and that is a significant contributor to inflation. The inflationary numbers we saw come out today.’

Psaki also warned…