← The ladder
Quincy, IL
OriginalThis is a planning tool, not a prediction. Of the 79 numbers behind a season in Quincy, 28 are published figures, 34 are worked out from published figures, and 17 are our own estimates. 44 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
1.6 months
After 90 days the project is worth
$14,205
Against the $10,000 you put in
+$4,205
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.
Rides a day
450
all operators, town-wide
Fast charging
$0.45
per kWh, public
Why this town is in the game
One of the two worlds the game shipped with, before any research existed. A TOWN: one service area, 2.25 miles of radius. It has since been re-grounded on a researched pack.
What this row rests on
79 numbers describe this town. Every one of
them says where it came from.
28 published by somebody else
34 worked out from those
17 our own estimates
Citations we went back and checked
10 held
/ 4 failed
Anything that failed was demoted to an estimate and says so.
What we could not find out
2
- rides_per_day: the research returned NO rides_reported record, so it is unknown whether a published trip count exists -- the chain is unchecked and this is a hole in the pack, not a fact about the city
- cross-check: no rides_reported record -- research did not produce one
Some of the numbers, and where they came from
A sample. The whole pack is in the data API.
Rides a day, whole townour estimate450 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 estimate3.5 miles
Derived directly from the city’s published land area (15.919 sq mi); intra-city geography cannot support the 6-plus-mile averages seen in large metros. no published figure we could verify
Passengers boarding a yearpublished4,112 enplanements/year
Overnight electricityworked out0.1 $/kWh
Ameren Illinois publishes no standard time-of-use energy tariff that splits supply-plus-delivery rates by hour for residential or small-commercial customers; this overnight figure is an imposed shape relative to the utility's settled commercial bundled average
Evening electricityworked out0.16 $/kWh
No Ameren Illinois tariff publishes a higher evening energy rate; this 16:00–midnight figure completes the imposed three-period shape that preserves the utility's commercial bundled average while giving a small operator a realistic on-peak penalty.
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 out755 $/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 out62 $
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
Named demand generatorspublished
Blessing Hospital (347 beds, 2,515 jobs), Knapheide Mfg (1,700), Quincy Public Schools (1,100), Quincy University (1,185 students), John Wood CC, Illinois Veterans Home (454), Oakley-Lindsay Center (3
These are the real named employers, campuses and the convention hall that actually concentrate trips inside the city; figures taken from the hospital, university, GREDF employer list and the center’s own capacity. This is a secondary source -- it republishes a
Great River Economic Development FoundationResearched 2026-09-09 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.