On second look, yes that Guardian source is pretty shitty. I couldn't find some authoritative source for the CO^2 emissions required to produce a new car. My point was that you had to consider it.
> cars used for ride services will be replaced
> more often.
It's not meaningful to consider how often they're replaced, but what mileage they tend to get if we're going to look at how the CO^2 cost of producing the car is amortized over its lifetime.
According to EPA statistics a typical car gets used for 100-200K miles[1], for taxis that number seems to be easily 2x or 3x larger[2]. So for the same amount of moving people from A to B taxis are mor CO^2 efficient.
Of course there are all sorts of secondary effects you're not taking into account. Once people don't own a car because they have something like Uber available to them, they're more likely to use a bike or public transport for a trip they'd otherwise take by car. Just compare somewhere like NYC to LA in terms of how much CO^2 a typical person emits while going about their day.
I don't know what the exact numbers are, but this is a lot more complex than what you're making it out to be.
According to EPA statistics a typical car gets used for 100-200K miles[1], for taxis that number seems to be easily 2x or 3x larger[2]. So for the same amount of moving people from A to B taxis are mor CO^2 efficient.
Of course there are all sorts of secondary effects you're not taking into account. Once people don't own a car because they have something like Uber available to them, they're more likely to use a bike or public transport for a trip they'd otherwise take by car. Just compare somewhere like NYC to LA in terms of how much CO^2 a typical person emits while going about their day.
I don't know what the exact numbers are, but this is a lot more complex than what you're making it out to be.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_longevity#Statistics
2. https://www.quora.com/How-many-miles-does-a-NYC-taxi-do-in-i...