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It won't be worth anything because autonomous ride-sharing will be a pricing game. Anyone who undercuts Uber, and there will be plenty of willing and able compa
by rorykoehler 10y ago
It won't be worth anything because autonomous ride-sharing will be a pricing game. Anyone who undercuts Uber, and there will be plenty of willing and able companies, will beat them.
- _spoonman 10y agoAn app that books the cheapest ride for you out of all the ride-sharing companies. Like Kayak but for ride-sharing. This comment is the same as a patent, right?
- dragonwriter 10y agoGoogle has ridesharing price comparison built into Maps already.
- web007 10y agoArbitrage for cars - Carbitrage. Someone already had the domain registered the last time I checked.
- rorykoehler 10y agohttps://www.urbi.co/en/ https://www.urbi.co/en/ same same but for car sharing services. Ediy: seems to also include ride sharing now.
- aetherson 10y agoUber attempts to keep control of what clients connect to its API for exactly this reason.
- choxi 10y agoThere are a few other things they could compete on: - Availability. Who has the largest network and highest availability? - Car Design. Who has the most comfortable or fully featured cars? - Safety. Who has the safest car? Who has the safest track record? It might eventually become a race to the bottom, but I think there's still plenty of opportunity to compete on other fronts for at least the next five years.
- baldeagle 10y agoAbility to clean / autonomously clean itself. I think this will be the next big thing for car ride fleets.
- maxerickson 10y agoIf you are competing on price for commuters the obvious thing is a waterproof interior and some high pressure nozzles in the ceiling. Car drives up to machine with hose, hose attaches, water sprays.
- dpark 10y agoThe obvious thing is to pay a couple of people minimum wage to sit in a parking lot and clean cars when they arrive. A car with a waterproof interior would be miserable and cheap feeling. No one wants to sit in a humid, rubber car.
- dpark 10y agoHaving a few people waiting in a parking lot to clean cars is a far more cost-effective strategy. There's no need for complex automation on this.
- ralphhughes 10y agoWe tried this with our fleet of landrovers. Each one has a waterproof interior and is plumbed with sprinkler pipe with hoze-lock connectors on the back of the vehicle so it can be plugged in to the water supply. It doesn't work, the water spray is not strong enough, or directed enough to remove the mud and sand. We still have to have people going round with water jets to spot clean. A have my doubts a fully automatic system could ever work effectively.
- jedberg 10y agoAvailability barely matters though. When I need a ride I open Lyft, see if they have a car nearby, and if the answer is no, I switch to Uber. The switching cost is so low it's negligible.
- rubicon33 10y agoHere's a crazy business idea: You know how a person nowadays can register for uber and drive people around? In the future, maybe people will register their CAR (which can drive itself). So they sit at home, getting work done, while their car is off autonomously driving itself and picking people up. When you want it to come home, just call it home.
- rorykoehler 10y agoWhich is exactly what Musk announced Tesla will be doing.
- rubicon33 10y agoHadn't heard that! This is why I'm not an entrepreneur apparently... Every time I have an idea, it's been done already by at least one person. Anyways, you wouldn't happen to have that announcement handy would you?
- overcast 10y agoGood ideas are a dime a dozen. Whatever you're thinking, a thousand other people on the planet have DEFINITELY thought of as well. The difference between people with ideas, and entrepreneurs, is that entrepreneurs make an attempt to bring that idea to life.
- cvigoe 10y agohttps://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux
- bduerst 10y agoThat just proves pricing is even more relevant. Anyone could spin up an app that let's people lease out their self-driving cars. The existing ride-sharing consumers are not loyal to the apps.
- duality 10y agoLiterally pimping your ride