Uber drivers in California will be able to set their own fares as part of a new pilot program, which the rideshare company is testing as a response to the state’s new gig-economy law that categorizes individual contractors of a company as employees.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the company will begin testing the feature starting Tuesday, January 21. Drivers with passengers going to or from the Santa Barbara, Palm Springs, or Sacramento airports can charge their passengers up to five times the regular ride fare.
However, that doesn’t mean that all ride prices will necessarily go up. The Journal reports that the update would essentially create a bidding system, allowing drivers to increase fares only in 10% increments at a time and up to a maximum of five times the regular price. Uber will automatically match a rider to the driver with the lowest price, and those drivers who have higher fares will be paired with rides once the demand for rides increases.
“Since [Assembly Bill 5] has gone into effect, we’ve made a number of product changes to preserve flexible work for tens of thousands of California drivers. We’re now doing an initial test of additional changes which would give drivers more control over the rates they charge riders,” an Uber spokesperson told Digital Trends.
The new updates are reportedly Uber’s way of furthering their stance that their drivers are independent of the company as contractors, rather than regular employees as the new law states. Assembly Bill 5 went into effect in California on January 1, requiring companies to treat their contractors the same way they treat regular employees. Contractors are now eligible for basic protections such as minimum-wage requirements, health benefits, and Social Security,
Uber has previously voiced that it is against the bill, and its drivers are, too.
“Several previous rulings have found that drivers’ work is outside the usual course of Uber’s business, which is serving as a technology platform for several different types of digital marketplaces,” Uber chief legal officer Tony West said during a conference call back in September.
“There would be real changes in the way that drivers interact with the platform, and based on what drivers tell us, they are not changes that they would welcome,” West added.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.
Missing out on the self-driving future is a tough pill to swallow, especially as a car enthusiast. But that is what Tesla handed us on Wednesday, without a hint of mercy.
During its October 21, 2026 earnings call, Elon Musk told investors the Cybercab is meant mainly as a ride service. Further, nearly all of them will be owned and managed by Tesla.