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The conclusion at the end is that car manufacturers are better suited to benefit from driverless cars as Uber is not in the business of building or maintaining

by bko 10y ago

The conclusion at the end is that car manufacturers are better suited to benefit from driverless cars as Uber is not in the business of building or maintaining a fleet of cards. But by that same reasoning, manufacturers are not in the business of dispatching taxis. I'm skeptical that manufacturers would be that nimble to capitalize on the inevitable. That's also not their business model. Building out such an effort in such a large organization would be a challenge. It would be much cheaper for car manufacturers to partner with or buy a company like Uber. In regard to Uber not having data to create the machine learning models needed for self-driving cards, they could buy that data or start building it up themselves. Google doesn't have a monopoly on strapping cameras and sensors to cars. And Uber certainly has enough capital required. Besides, this is a core strategy for Uber while it's still a moon-shot for Google.

galdosdi 10y ago
But it's way easier to enter the dispatch app business than the car manufacturing business, as is demonstrated by Uber's menagerie of competitors. While car manufacturers are hardly the nimblest they're not brain dead and are already exploring related stuff (example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2016/07/18/gm-launches-new-car-sharing-service-in-d-c/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2016/07/1...) If we reach a day where there is some company, call them company U which has a successful dispatch app business, and another company, call them company C, which has just successfully demonstrated (and passed regulatory hurdles for) a self driving car, what do you think will be easier and cheaper and quicker? For U to develop/acquire/license self-driving car technology or for C to develop/acquire/license a dispatch app? C could probably pay very little to license a dispatch app from any of the many vendors. Even if it's not popular before, it will be once it's the only dispatch app that dispatches SELF DRIVING CARS! But if U tried to license self driving from C, U would probably have very little leverage and end up signing a contract where U runs the show but ships most of the revenues to C. C would be like Microsoft in the 80s/90s, and U would be like a generic IBM PC compatible computer vendor.

by bko 10y ago

galdosdi 10y ago

But it's way easier to enter the dispatch app business than the car manufacturing business, as is demonstrated by Uber's menagerie of competitors. While car manufacturers are hardly the nimblest they're not brain dead and are already exploring related stuff (example: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2016/07/18/gm-launches-new-car-sharing-service-in-d-c/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2016/07/1...) If we reach a day where there is some company, call them company U which has a successful dispatch app business, and another company, call them company C, which has just successfully demonstrated (and passed regulatory hurdles for) a self driving car, what do you think will be easier and cheaper and quicker? For U to develop/acquire/license self-driving car technology or for C to develop/acquire/license a dispatch app? C could probably pay very little to license a dispatch app from any of the many vendors. Even if it's not popular before, it will be once it's the only dispatch app that dispatches SELF DRIVING CARS! But if U tried to license self driving from C, U would probably have very little leverage and end up signing a contract where U runs the show but ships most of the revenues to C. C would be like Microsoft in the 80s/90s, and U would be like a generic IBM PC compatible computer vendor.