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I think almost certainly their profitability is dependent on a future of driverless cars, and I'm sure that's what they are pitching investors. Fearfully, sinc

I think almost certainly their profitability is dependent on a future of driverless cars, and I'm sure that's what they are pitching investors. Fearfully, since their survival means going driverless and they are now losing $800 million a quarter, they will race to get driverless cars on the road, it will be rushed, and it could be reckless. I'm thinking the two driverless cars filmed blowing red lights in SF recently (at the very start of their SF driverless program), not to mention possibly many other traffic violations that no one happened to be filming. They are going to wrangle regulators and skirt laws to make it happen with urgency. They now have an advisor to Trump. I'm just here watching the rushing of driverless cars onto the road by Uber so that their company doesn't collapse. We'll see what happens.

chrischen 10y ago
If taxis could survive there's no reason uber couldn't.
- automatwon 10y ago
  Uber can survive, but will it survive as a global monopoly? Taxi companies survived as local monopolies.
colechristensen 10y ago
Reckless and non-viable in much of the world. Nobody is going to get an autonomous car working in a winter climate for a long time. Lines on the road can't be seen, there are potholes, driving through deep piles of snow are common, communicating with other drivers and accomidating and anticipating their actions in snow narrowed streets is necessary.... There are plenty of times of year where I'd be wary trusting a human driver from the bay area in a Minneapolis snow storm much less a computer designed by them. I can see how it would be easy not being able to imagine difficult road conditions when you spend your whole life in a place where the worst weather is a tiny bit of rain. Multiple instances of running red lights right when they start testing? To me that says driverless cars are decades away and some people are so optimistic that they aren't going to see it before there are several tragedies and driverless cars are legislated away. There are lots of very common driving mistakes that are orders of magnitude more common than stopping for a red light.
- intrasight 10y ago
  Uber autonomous doesn't have to be better than the best human drivers in all conditions. They only have to be much better than the average human driver in all conditions. This isn't a very high threshold to meet.
  - reddytowns 10y ago
    The average human driver includes what? Babies? Blind people? Drunks?
  - aetherson 10y ago
    It IS a high threshold to meet. People on HN handwave it all the time, but the fact is that not only are driverless cars still less capable than human drivers, they're also less safe today. And if you believe that that will change in the very new future, your belief is essentially faith.
  - grogenaut 10y ago
    I would point out that as much as people complain about how well cabbies drive, they have way more hours behind the wheel than most people. Quick calculation: Lets think about people who drive their whole lives, not city folks. Lets think about work hours driving as it's likely to be the most by quantity, and vacation or pleasure driving should be roughly equivalent. 30 minutes each average way 5 days a week starting at 16, so by 40 they've driven 5/7365 = 260hrs / year. 260 24 years = 6240 hours. 8 Hours a day, 5 days a week, with salaried level vacations is 2000 hours a year. Many drivers are likely to work way more than that. Anyway, 6240 / 2000 = 3.12 years. That means that if you started driving at 18, you'd have the same hours driving as a 40 year old. This also means that by the gladwell definition of 10,000 hours, you don't become an expert driver till 54.5 years. However a pro driver becomes and expert after 5 YEARS of driving. This also means that only 22% (those over 55) of america is likely to be an expert driver. http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/demographic.html http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/demographic.html If HN population is the same as americans (it's likely skewed older), then 78% of hacker news isn't a gladwellian "Expert". So self driving cars don't need to be better than most people they need to be better than a group of people who are very likely to be experts.
microtherion 10y ago
Ironically, one of Uber's current cost advantages is that they don't own their fleet of cars, and their drivers are bad at estimating depreciation. Once they go driverless, they won't have to pay drivers anymore, but they will no longer have drivers renting them their car at a discounted rate.

chrischen 10y ago

If taxis could survive there's no reason uber couldn't.

automatwon 10y ago
Uber can survive, but will it survive as a global monopoly? Taxi companies survived as local monopolies.

colechristensen 10y ago

Reckless and non-viable in much of the world. Nobody is going to get an autonomous car working in a winter climate for a long time. Lines on the road can't be seen, there are potholes, driving through deep piles of snow are common, communicating with other drivers and accomidating and anticipating their actions in snow narrowed streets is necessary.... There are plenty of times of year where I'd be wary trusting a human driver from the bay area in a Minneapolis snow storm much less a computer designed by them. I can see how it would be easy not being able to imagine difficult road conditions when you spend your whole life in a place where the worst weather is a tiny bit of rain. Multiple instances of running red lights right when they start testing? To me that says driverless cars are decades away and some people are so optimistic that they aren't going to see it before there are several tragedies and driverless cars are legislated away. There are lots of very common driving mistakes that are orders of magnitude more common than stopping for a red light.

intrasight 10y ago
Uber autonomous doesn't have to be better than the best human drivers in all conditions. They only have to be much better than the average human driver in all conditions. This isn't a very high threshold to meet.
- reddytowns 10y ago
  The average human driver includes what? Babies? Blind people? Drunks?
- aetherson 10y ago
  It IS a high threshold to meet. People on HN handwave it all the time, but the fact is that not only are driverless cars still less capable than human drivers, they're also less safe today. And if you believe that that will change in the very new future, your belief is essentially faith.
- grogenaut 10y ago
  I would point out that as much as people complain about how well cabbies drive, they have way more hours behind the wheel than most people. Quick calculation: Lets think about people who drive their whole lives, not city folks. Lets think about work hours driving as it's likely to be the most by quantity, and vacation or pleasure driving should be roughly equivalent. 30 minutes each average way 5 days a week starting at 16, so by 40 they've driven 5/7365 = 260hrs / year. 260 24 years = 6240 hours. 8 Hours a day, 5 days a week, with salaried level vacations is 2000 hours a year. Many drivers are likely to work way more than that. Anyway, 6240 / 2000 = 3.12 years. That means that if you started driving at 18, you'd have the same hours driving as a 40 year old. This also means that by the gladwell definition of 10,000 hours, you don't become an expert driver till 54.5 years. However a pro driver becomes and expert after 5 YEARS of driving. This also means that only 22% (those over 55) of america is likely to be an expert driver. http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/demographic.html http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/demographic.html If HN population is the same as americans (it's likely skewed older), then 78% of hacker news isn't a gladwellian "Expert". So self driving cars don't need to be better than most people they need to be better than a group of people who are very likely to be experts.

microtherion 10y ago

Ironically, one of Uber's current cost advantages is that they don't own their fleet of cars, and their drivers are bad at estimating depreciation. Once they go driverless, they won't have to pay drivers anymore, but they will no longer have drivers renting them their car at a discounted rate.