Colorado Springs, CO

Requested

This is a planning tool, not a prediction. Of the 80 numbers behind a season in Colorado Springs, 31 are published figures, 35 are worked out from published figures, and 14 are our own estimates. 43 of them were read straight out of a federal file that covers every city in the country, so there was no citation to trust and no page to misread. You can change any of them. Your result is only as good as the numbers you agree with.

How long until you have your $10,000 back

7.0 months

After 90 days the project is worth

$7,361

Against the $10,000 you put in

-$2,639

This projects the first 90 days forward in a straight line. Early months carry start-up drag, so later ones may run better. It is a direction, not a date.

Where the money goes on day one

The project is behind before the car turns a wheel. That is true in every town on this list, and it is the hole the months above are measured against.

You put in$10,000

Hard costs, paid once

Down payment on a $28,900 car -$2,900

Installing home charging -$2,250

Permits and onboardingplaceholder -$650

Money left to operate on$4,200

Plus the car equity. You paid $28,900, but it would only fetch $27,166 the moment it is yours, and you owe $26,000 of that +$1,166

What the project is worth on day one$5,366

The project is $4,634 down before the first fare: $2,900 genuinely spent, and $1,734 that vanished the moment the car stopped being new.

Two honest caveats. The permit figure is marked placeholder because the model invents it — the obligation is real, the amount is not researched. And nothing here counts sales tax, excise, title or registration on the purchase, which vary by state and this model does not yet carry, so every figure is a best case.

What comes off every fare before you see it

The rider pays100%

The network takesour estimate −30%

Reaches the business70%

That 30% comes off the top — before energy, cleaning, insurance, the depot or the loan payment. Every figure on this page is already after it.

Tesla has published no owner-operator revenue share for Robotaxi, anywhere, so this is an expectation rather than a reported figure. 30% is roughly what the established ride-hail platforms take and what people following the rollout broadly expect. It is the largest single lever in the whole model: at 25% instead, the same season leaves about 7% more in your hand — more than any driving decision you can make. Fares also settle 7 days after they are earned.

People

494,743

El Paso County

Rides a day

18,346

all operators, town-wide

Airport

5.3 mi

worked out

Fast charging

$0.68

per kWh, public

Why this town is in the game

Asked for by Dave, for a state the ladder had never touched. At 494,743 people it is the largest market added since Chicago, with 1.2 million airport boardings five miles out. Its research held 13 of 14 citations, the best ratio of any town on the list.

What this row rests on

80 numbers describe this town. Every one of them says where it came from.

31 published by somebody else 35 worked out from those 14 our own estimates

Citations we went back and checked

13 held / 1 failed

Anything that failed was demoted to an estimate and says so.

What we could not find out

visitor_local_trips_per_stay: the panel's own draws disagreed by 2.5x (0.7, 0.8, 1, 0.4, 0.55), so this component is not settled
rides_per_day: the five named sources were checked and none publishes a trip count for this city, so the estimate stands on its own arithmetic

Some of the numbers, and where they came from

A sample. The whole pack is in the data API.

Rides a day, whole townour estimate18,346 rides/day

Total app-hailed trips a day across every operator in the city -- the pool your fleet competes for a share of, not the number you will get. no published figure we could verify

Average paid trip lengthworked out7.0 miles

No one publishes a Colorado Springs ride-hail trip length, so this is the city’s own geography (202.23 sq mi) stepped onto CDOT’s statewide TNC passenger-trip length of 7 miles, which matches Uber’s local 17-minute typical ride better than a dense-core 4–5 mil

Passengers boarding a yearpublished1,248,261 enplanements/year

FAA calendar year 2024 ENPLANEMENTS -- passengers BOARDING, which is about half of the arrivals-plus-departures figure an airport press release quotes. This is the federal count, read out of the FAA's own file. FAA, CY2024 Passenger Boarding (Enplanement) Data for U.S. Airports

Overnight electricityworked out0.098 $/kWh

All-in midnight–06:00 rate on Public Service Co of Colorado (Xcel) Schedule RE-TOU: PUC-published off-peak energy charge (bundled energy + delivery) hour-weighted across 2026 summer and winter, then grossed up by the Q2 2026 RE-TOU Electric Commodity Adjustmen

Evening on-peak electricityworked out0.265 $/kWh

All-in Schedule RE-TOU on-peak energy charge (bundled energy + delivery) hour-weighted across 2026 summer and winter, plus the 36.89% RE-TOU ECA; use this for the expensive evening window, which the tariff sets at 5–9 p.m. weekdays, not the whole 16:00–midnigh

Insurance on each car after the firstworked out331 $/month

What each additional vehicle adds to the premium. Lower than the first car because a fleet policy spreads the administrative part of a premium across the vehicles while the risk part scales with them -- which is part of why growing is the way out of the trap.

A small commercial bay, per monthworked out1,487 $/month

This is a derivation, not a local quote: a national published figure scaled by a published local index. Nobody publishes what a 1,500 square foot bay lets for in a town this size, because small commercial bays let privately, one handshake at a time, and no ind

A full interior cleanworked out77 $

This is a derivation, not a local quote: a national published figure scaled by a published local index. Nobody publishes a full interior detail in a town this size, because it is a manual service: keeping a price list current is work, and the price is whatever

Demand generatorsour estimate

Fort Carson (32,410 military/civilian/contractors, Feb 2025); USAFA (~4,100 cadets, just north); Peterson Space Force Base; UCHealth Memorial Central (404 available beds) and North (140); Penrose Hosp

The named generators that actually move people: the south-side Army post, the north-side Air Force Academy, Space Force at Peterson, the two hospital systems, the colleges, and the tourist/Olympic west-southwest. no published figure we could verify

Published paid-ride countour estimate0 trips/year

No current Colorado Springs or El Paso County TNC or taxi trip total is published; a zero here is an audited absence, not a claim that nobody rides. no published figure we could verify

Researched 2026-09-13 on pipeline 2.1.0. Measured on sim 1.5.0, 12 seeds, median reported. A result is only comparable to another from the same sim version.