Uber hails new financing scheme for its drivers ©Thor Swift Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber, aims to take his taxi service to 100 cities by the end of 2013 Uber, the taxi-hailing service, is hoping that a new financing scheme for its drivers will bring more cars on to the road and help to sustain its rapid growth, as it continues its international expansion. A pilot scheme to enable drivers to lease or obtain financing for new General Motors and Toyota cars more cheaply should bring "hundreds of thousands" more drivers into the Uber network in the coming years, the San Francisco-based company said on Monday. "We basically created a vehicle for vehicles," said Travis Kalanick, Uber's chief executive. Because of the affiliation with Uber, the risk of financing those partners goes down substantially. Drivers participating in the scheme, which is being tested in six US cities, must push a "minimum volume" of business through Uber's smartphone app to continue to qualify for savings of about $100 a month. The partnership with unnamed lenders comes after Uber's $258m fundraising this summer that valued the three-year-old company at about $3.5bn. That round was led by Google Ventures but also included TPG, a private equity group that has previously invested in automotive financing groups around the world. Uber said that it expects fares totalling more than $100m per year in several of the 60 cities in which it operates. The company takes a 20 per cent commission, with the remainder going to the driver, who must cover their own fuel and vehicle costs. A "fully utilised" car using Uber's app to locate customers and take payments generates more than $100,000 per year in spending, the tech company said. Uber's total revenues have increased several times over during the past year and monthly growth rates have risen from 16 per cent a year ago to 20 per cent today, as it expands to new cities including Moscow, Tokyo and Abu Dhabi. But it also faces competition from "peer to peer" ridesharing services such as Lyft and Sidecar, which allow drivers with smartphones to use their own cars as makeshift taxis, and from other taxi-hailing apps such as Hailo and GetTaxi. These ridesharing services may find it easier to build a network in smaller cities than Uber, which largely relies on fleets of limousines and taxis to provide its service. Uber's scheme is the latest example of a company operating in the so-called "sharing economy" that is offering more support and infrastructure services to the people upon whom its business depends. Airbnb, which recently launched a new mobile app for the people who host travellers in their homes, said it is considering financing smartphone purchases for members who have not yet upgraded their mobile devices. Hosts with smartphones tend to be more responsive than those using Airbnb on a PC to rent out their spare rooms and homes, the company said.