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This is really worrying for Uber. It's supposedly burning 2 billion dollars a year. It doesn't own any fleet of vehicles or it's drivers. Neither is there a sus

This is really worrying for Uber. It's supposedly burning 2 billion dollars a year. It doesn't own any fleet of vehicles or it's drivers. Neither is there a sustainable cost savings that doesn't involve lighting pile of cash on fire. It desperately needs driverless cars before Tesla and Google kills their business off. Now Uber has finally hit a regulatory wall which it won't be able to pay off. It's likely to hit more such obstacles until it realizes it's not really in the business of taxi but a business of acquiring market share with low interest rate capital. We won't see an Uber IPO anytime soon.

krasin 10y ago
Michigan just passed a set of very pro-self-driving cars laws: http://fortune.com/2016/12/09/michigan-self-driving-cars/ http://fortune.com/2016/12/09/michigan-self-driving-cars/ So, Uber only hit the wall in SF, and can still continue testing elsewhere. That said, I don't like the aggressive gambling with pedestrians lifes like Uber or Tesla do.
- rgarrett88 10y ago
  >That said, I don't like the aggressive gambling with pedestrians lifes like Uber or Tesla do. We gamble with pedestrian's lives every time we get in a car. No one has seen how these vehicles perform in real world scenarios. It seems very possible they could perform better than humans on average.
  - krasin 10y ago
    My guess is that the levels of these systems will differ. Some systems will be better than humans (on average), and some systems will be worse. The gamble I mention is that Uber and Tesla are putting too many machines on the road at once without having good priors for their current level of competence.
    - dmix 10y ago
      > The gamble I mention is that Uber and Tesla are putting too many machines on the road at once without having good priors for their current level of competence. And from whom do you expect this data will come from? How many is too many? Why? As far as I'm concerned as long as a human can take control at a seconds notice, the risk here is very much overblown. I haven't seen an instance where a company wasn't taking reasonable precautions and was acting foolishly. I'd love to be proven otherwise... There's a reason why companies waited until 2016 to start putting these on public roads. And even then they are usually limited like Teslas. They are taking it slowly like responsible engineers... Now that full data capture and machine learning is being added pretty much every ride is contributing to the quality of these systems.
      - Twisell 10y ago
        The problematic part for me was Tesla bragging about safety of autopilot before they had enough significant data. Basically saying "We still don't have any fatalities so he'll yeah we must be safer than human!". The sad part for skeptics like me is that we couldn't really oppose this kindergarten argumentation. We had to wait for the first fatality (wich happened as you must all know). So now if I base myself on Tesla own logic, I'm only one death away of saying that Tesla autopilot is far worse than average human driver... And this actually is gambling with human life. PS: Noteworthy if theses gamblers are wrong this could easily backfire on the whole autonomous driving industry.
      - throwaway998127 10y ago
        > And from whom do you expect this data will come from? If they have that much money, they can build their own test city and populate it with volunteers. I'll be thrilled to see Travis Kalanick walk over the mock street 100x per day while the cars are being tested. > As far as I'm concerned as long as a human can take control at a seconds notice, the risk here is very much overblown. That worked out splendidly for Air France flight 447 and many others.
aetherson 10y ago
It's not clear that Uber has hit a regulatory wall. The DMV wrote them a stern note, yes. Uber has received various scary-sounding threats of government sanction and has overcome them in the past (for example, at one point a German judge threatened to fine them 250k euros per car per day). They have often been successful in arguing their case or in going above or around uncooperative regulators. The California state government is not a monolith, and Uber is an experienced lobbyist and negotiator. It's certainly possible that the DMV will prevail here, but not a certainty. And even if the DMV does prevail, Uber can get the appropriate permits and then resume, or else just pilot the program in one of the 49 other states.
- dmix 10y ago
  Exactly. Uber is likely already following all of the permit requirements ($5 million insurance and experienced drivers) so they just need to apply for one. That assumes they don't challenge it in court based on the ambiguous language of the bill about what determines an autonomous vehicle, which sounds like their plan. They've demonstrated themselves to not be afraid of some bad press or the court room. Hardly a major roadblock at the pre-market testing stage for such a big company already operating in Pittsburgh. They could easily shift testing to other people more welcoming states and countries in the meantime.
detaro 10y ago
>Now Uber has finally hit a regulatory wall which it won't be able to pay off. I wouldn't be surprised if they just can say "sorry, misunderstanding", apply for a permit like everybody else and continue with a bit more oversight.
- Fricken 10y ago
  That's what will happen, but it's fashionable to predict Uber's imminent demise.
  - Tempest1981 10y ago
    Well, and look at all the free press they got out of this.
pjc50 10y ago
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/trump-advisers-elon-musk-uber-ceo-travis-kalanick-strategic-and-policy-forum/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/trump-advisers-elon-musk-... Uber have the ear of the president-elect. That's worth quite a lot in terms of being able to ignore regulations.

krasin 10y ago

Michigan just passed a set of very pro-self-driving cars laws: http://fortune.com/2016/12/09/michigan-self-driving-cars/ http://fortune.com/2016/12/09/michigan-self-driving-cars/ So, Uber only hit the wall in SF, and can still continue testing elsewhere. That said, I don't like the aggressive gambling with pedestrians lifes like Uber or Tesla do.

rgarrett88 10y ago
>That said, I don't like the aggressive gambling with pedestrians lifes like Uber or Tesla do. We gamble with pedestrian's lives every time we get in a car. No one has seen how these vehicles perform in real world scenarios. It seems very possible they could perform better than humans on average.
- krasin 10y ago
  My guess is that the levels of these systems will differ. Some systems will be better than humans (on average), and some systems will be worse. The gamble I mention is that Uber and Tesla are putting too many machines on the road at once without having good priors for their current level of competence.
  - dmix 10y ago
    > The gamble I mention is that Uber and Tesla are putting too many machines on the road at once without having good priors for their current level of competence. And from whom do you expect this data will come from? How many is too many? Why? As far as I'm concerned as long as a human can take control at a seconds notice, the risk here is very much overblown. I haven't seen an instance where a company wasn't taking reasonable precautions and was acting foolishly. I'd love to be proven otherwise... There's a reason why companies waited until 2016 to start putting these on public roads. And even then they are usually limited like Teslas. They are taking it slowly like responsible engineers... Now that full data capture and machine learning is being added pretty much every ride is contributing to the quality of these systems.
    - Twisell 10y ago
      The problematic part for me was Tesla bragging about safety of autopilot before they had enough significant data. Basically saying "We still don't have any fatalities so he'll yeah we must be safer than human!". The sad part for skeptics like me is that we couldn't really oppose this kindergarten argumentation. We had to wait for the first fatality (wich happened as you must all know). So now if I base myself on Tesla own logic, I'm only one death away of saying that Tesla autopilot is far worse than average human driver... And this actually is gambling with human life. PS: Noteworthy if theses gamblers are wrong this could easily backfire on the whole autonomous driving industry.
    - throwaway998127 10y ago
      > And from whom do you expect this data will come from? If they have that much money, they can build their own test city and populate it with volunteers. I'll be thrilled to see Travis Kalanick walk over the mock street 100x per day while the cars are being tested. > As far as I'm concerned as long as a human can take control at a seconds notice, the risk here is very much overblown. That worked out splendidly for Air France flight 447 and many others.

aetherson 10y ago

It's not clear that Uber has hit a regulatory wall. The DMV wrote them a stern note, yes. Uber has received various scary-sounding threats of government sanction and has overcome them in the past (for example, at one point a German judge threatened to fine them 250k euros per car per day). They have often been successful in arguing their case or in going above or around uncooperative regulators. The California state government is not a monolith, and Uber is an experienced lobbyist and negotiator. It's certainly possible that the DMV will prevail here, but not a certainty. And even if the DMV does prevail, Uber can get the appropriate permits and then resume, or else just pilot the program in one of the 49 other states.

dmix 10y ago
Exactly. Uber is likely already following all of the permit requirements ($5 million insurance and experienced drivers) so they just need to apply for one. That assumes they don't challenge it in court based on the ambiguous language of the bill about what determines an autonomous vehicle, which sounds like their plan. They've demonstrated themselves to not be afraid of some bad press or the court room. Hardly a major roadblock at the pre-market testing stage for such a big company already operating in Pittsburgh. They could easily shift testing to other people more welcoming states and countries in the meantime.

detaro 10y ago

>Now Uber has finally hit a regulatory wall which it won't be able to pay off. I wouldn't be surprised if they just can say "sorry, misunderstanding", apply for a permit like everybody else and continue with a bit more oversight.

Fricken 10y ago
That's what will happen, but it's fashionable to predict Uber's imminent demise.
- Tempest1981 10y ago
  Well, and look at all the free press they got out of this.

pjc50 10y ago

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/trump-advisers-elon-musk-uber-ceo-travis-kalanick-strategic-and-policy-forum/ https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/trump-advisers-elon-musk-... Uber have the ear of the president-elect. That's worth quite a lot in terms of being able to ignore regulations.