Columbia, MO

Requested

This is a planning tool, not a prediction. Of the 80 numbers behind a season in Columbia, 29 are published figures, 34 are worked out from published figures, and 17 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

3.5 months

After 90 days the project is worth

$9,362

Against the $10,000 you put in

-$638

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

130,851

Boone County

Rides a day

1,781

all operators, town-wide

Airport

10.7 mi

worked out

Fast charging

$0.42

per kWh, public

Why this town is in the game

Asked for by Dave. A university town of 130,851 with 1,781 rides a day, and it lands twelfth of eighteen -- slower to pay back than Alturas, California, population 2,634. The clearest case on the list that market size is not the thing that decides this.

What this row rests on

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

29 published by somebody else 34 worked out from those 17 our own estimates

Citations we went back and checked

11 held / 2 failed

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

What we could not find out

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 estimate1,781 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 lengthour estimate4.5 miles

Nobody publishes Columbia TNC trip lengths. The city’s own land area and 16.4-minute mean commute are the strongest local geometry; a national TNC mile-length is then stepped down because this town is compact and TNC here is not a commute mode (ACS taxi/ride-h no published figure we could verify

Passengers boarding a yearpublished103,081 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 out0.0851 $/kWh

All-in volumetric price (tariff energy + FAC + EEIC + RESRAM, no monthly customer charge or local tax) on Union Electric/Ameren Missouri Small General Service 2(M) Optional Overnight Saver off-peak, 10 p.m.–6 a.m. every day, which covers midnight–6 a.m.; a sma

Evening electricityworked out0.1181 $/kWh

Ameren 2(M) Optional Overnight Saver has no 4 p.m.–midnight period: 4 p.m.–10 p.m. is on-peak and 10 p.m.–midnight is already off-peak. This blends those two tariff hours so the 16:00–24:00 window is not silently billed at the full on-peak rate.

Insurance on each car after the firstworked out263 $/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 out990 $/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 out60 $

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

MU (32,105 students; 9,732 jobs); University Hospital (390-bed Level I trauma) plus Boone Health and Truman VA; Veterans United Home Loans (2,906); Shelter Insurance; Columbia Public Schools (2,944);

The city’s demand is a college-town stack: a 32,000-student flagship campus, a 390-bed Level I hospital, a second community hospital and a VA, plus two large private employers and a stadium that sells out. no published figure we could verify

Published paid-ride countour estimate0 trips/year

No public body publishes Columbia taxi or TNC trip totals. Missouri does not run a Nevada-style taxicab authority report; Columbia licenses taxis but does not release manifests; the airport publishes passengers, not TNC pickups; CATSO describes Uber/Lyft quali no published figure we could verify

Researched 2026-09-12 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.