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From a strategy point Uber is in a desperate position. After the Google lawsuit their self-driving story is not working. Their existing business is loosing mone

From a strategy point Uber is in a desperate position. After the Google lawsuit their self-driving story is not working. Their existing business is loosing money in most places with no end in sight. Top level executives are leaving which is a sign that they can't imagine a positive course in the medium term. The company is under extreme pressure and has proven over and over again to be willing to cut corners when it comes to legal compliance. It should be frightening to anyone on the streets that Uber managers are making decisions to put self driving cars on the road. They neither have the culture, patience nor the expertise to make decisions affecting life and death.

dorfsmay 10y ago
I'm surprised we don't hear more about Mercedes. I don't know how much of a story they have when it comes to self-driving car, but they already build cars, and they already have a well established rent-by-the-minute business: car2go.com. If and when they figure out self-driving cars all they have to do is slowly replace the people driven car2go by self-driven ones and they'll become a leader of that market without any fuss!
- M_Grey 10y ago
  As a rule, Mercedes tends to keep mum on tech they're not ready to roll out (at least to the S-Class), and they like it be pretty near perfect at that piont.
- matt4077 10y ago
  Every single carmaker will offer self-driving as an option at first, then as a standard feature. They'll also come with software that allows you to flip a switch and see your car take off to earn some money whenever you tell it – or it is reasonably sure from experience - that you won't need it for a while. The manufacturer will take care of billing and insure you against vandalism for a 30% cut. Meanwhile, Uber is but the faint memory of a bro-themed ponzi scheme. They have nothing that would allow them to remain relevant: no reputation, no technology, and -50 billion in capital. All they got to scale was the one part that's irrelevant: managing drivers. And groping women, of course.
  - stormbrew 10y ago
    I think it's far more likely you'll just be able to lease a timeshare on a car than this complicated scenario people bring up where a company sells you a car and then rents it back from you. Like, the tax implications of this scheme are pretty obnoxious alone for someone who isn't doing it for primary or even secondary income.
    - btown 10y ago
      But this way it's the car buyer who assumes the risk in case the timesharing model is less lucrative. The manufacturer doesn't want to hold any more inventory than it already has to.
      - baumandm 10y ago
        Probably other companies will step in to manage the inventory and match cars to users, just like existing rental car companies. Although in the short term, I can see the appeal of selling cars with a built-in ride-share mode. Many current car owners are likely to continue to want to own their own cars. If manufacturers can provide this feature out-of-the-box, it may help drive car sales to people who want to own cars and get "free money".
  - AJ007 10y ago
    There seems to be a big jump from what could happen to what definitely will happen. I would say highly likely that whatever car companies are left standing, one or more of them will have fairly good margins. How the ownership ends up working out remains to be seen. May be cities will cut deals with a specific company and all non-commercial vehicles will be controlled by that municipality. May be Google Maps will turn in to a transport marketplace and operators will bid based on destination. Likely Uber is going to have a very tough time. Likely they can cut a lot of the excess and operating expenses and be profitable for a while but at the loss of growth and new markets. Uber paved the way for a lot of this. There is no way Google, Apple, Tesla or definitely an established car company would have been able to plow their way in to these local markets, bypassing and ignoring regulations until the point that cities became dependent on Uber. Now it is done, and it isn't particular a moat for Uber. But they fucking did it, they are the ones who need the recognition for it.
- heisenbit 10y ago
  Both Mercedes and BMW (DriveNow as a co-venture with Sixt) run car sharing businesses. In terms of cities served Uber beats them hands down. Mercedes has 14.000 and BMW 4000 cars on the streets (wikipedia). That is a fraction of what Uber can mobilize. For Uber to be taken on they would need to scale up a magnitude or even two. At that scale it would affect their existing business and their now increasing engagement is an indication how serious the companies are taking this shift. Transportation as a service is clearly something. Car ownership is not always the best economic solution for an individual. The sharing demand exists but no one has established a large scale sustainable enterprise around it. What is needed? - Capital first and foremost as cars are not cheap. Two models so far: -- Uber leveraging car owner capital. That area is really opaque but one can assume individuals capital cost is higher than manufacturers especially as Uber drivers likely have not the best credit ratings. The volume Uber can leverage here is - assuming 500.000 drivers with cars worth $20.000 then this is 10 Billion USD. -- Car manufacturer and car rental companies (in the past often linked to manufacturers). There is some synergy in the vertical integration e.g. through manufacturing capacity management, tailored car features and marketing. - Fleet servicing. Uber has managed to shift that to drivers. - Driver. Uber has an individual driving. There may be autonomous vehicles. Then there is the person renting assuming driving license. - Critical mass. There is a focus on serving cities. I suspect autonomous vehicles may be vital to serve the wider area. - Insurance. Liability needs to be clarified and forms of insurance found if autonomous cars are allowed.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    > The sharing demand exists but no one has established a large scale sustainable enterprise around it. Zipcar et al? I guess my question is the following: If you don't want exclusive ownership and use of your vehicle, why would you want the hassles of ownership at all? I do get the some money on the side argument but I really wonder if it makes sense with cars given that a lot of depreciation/costs is because of mileage. It's a bit different from the AirBnB situation.
  - dorfsmay 10y ago
    Exactly. Today Uber relies on the owner/driver for the capital behind the vehicle, the vehicle acquisition, servicing, insurance, etc... Current car-sharing business (car2go, zipcar, etc...) already had to figure out all those parts, the only piece missing for them, like for everybody else so far, is the self-driving technology. > That is a fraction of what Uber can mobilize I don't understand your point. You're saying Uber will have random people buy self-driving car for them, service it etc... and let Uber use it? They'd effectively become a pico-bank in a very risky investment... Or am I missing something here?
- Strom 10y ago
  Mercedes released a video [1] back in 2013 showing pretty decent driving. I imagine they didn't stop with progress and have even more capable systems today. Mercedes-Benz has successfully completed the first autonomous long-distance drive ever, involving both town and cross-country traffic, using near-production-standard sensor systems. The Mercedes-Benz S 500 INTELLIGENT DRIVE research vehicle covered 100 kilometers from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, under real traffic conditions and complex situations including traffic lights, roundabouts, pedestrians, cyclists and trams. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AihC5flC-38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AihC5flC-38
  - manmal 10y ago
    I read an article couple months ago in a RL car magazine where they test-drove a Mercedes prototype. They had the impression that it drove almost perfect, even dealing with complicated highway construction sites without proper safety lines.
  - saddlerustle 10y ago
    Keep in mind that the technology Mercedes is actually shipping today is said to be worse than Honda's and significantly worse than Tesla's [1] [1] http://www.thedrive.com/tech/5707/the-war-for-autonomous-driving-part-iii-us-vs-germany-vs-japan http://www.thedrive.com/tech/5707/the-war-for-autonomous-dri...
  - frik 10y ago
    Mercedes show cased a self driving van in the 1980s, with stereo black/white cameras, and a big computer in the back. But can you buy a Merc Maybach S class with self driving comparable to Tesla S autopilot 2? No. That's why you see more and more Tesla S these days, plus it is all electric too.
  - thinkingthingy 10y ago
    My husband takes casual carpool most mornings to SF from Berkeley, and last week got a ride in one of the Mercedes Intelligent Drive cars (he mentioned the model, but I forgot). He said the driver didn't have to handle the car at all once he was picked up. The car drove itself onto the freeway, all the way over on the Bay Bridge, navigated the exit into SF and drove several blocks in the city. He said the driver took over only at the very end, when he pulled to the side of the road to drop my husband and the other passenger off. Pretty incredible!
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  Mercedes comes from a tradition of 'keep your mouth shut and then deliver a premium product.' Self-driving cars are not a market where 'move fast and break things' is an acceptable consumer philosophy and Uber demonstrates how tricky it is to reposition your brand from naughty to trustworthy. Mercedes, by contrast, can just run an ad in a year or two announcing that the new Z-Class or whatever it's called can drive you around in any weather and be believed by the vast majority of consumers.
  - noir_lord 10y ago
    Absolutely agreed and the kind of credibility Mercedes has in the market takes decades of excellent execution to accrue and a few years to fritter it away. Given that the gap between Mercedes and run of the mill saloon has been closing in real terms rapidly (when I was a kid cars where serviced every 5-12,0000 miles, these days it's not unusual for service periods to be more than twice that with 7 year warranties and the generally higher build/reliability across the board) their brand of understated excellence is a key part of why they can still charge so much.
- qume 10y ago
  I worked with a guy who had previously interned at Daimler (Mercedes) in Germany working on self driving cars, although it wasn't called that - I don't remember the phrase he used. This was in 2005.
api 10y ago
The worst part of Uber's situation is that they have priced themselves out of any reasonable path to further fund raising. Even a successful IPO would be a huge down round. I've never understood how valuations computed from white powder are strategically in the best interest of... anyone? Maybe someone more clueful about the nuances of VC can enlighten me. Even if Uber can make the Google suit and the harassment culture go away, I still don't see how they can ever justify that valuation. Every car company is about to ship (or has) some form of auto drive and there are no strong barriers to competing with Uber on ride sharing. Transportation is a commodity. How's Lyft doing?
zouhair 10y ago
The whole business model of Uber was about no legal compliance.
sebastos 10y ago
If Uber were a publicly traded company I'd be buying as much stock as possible right now. All I see is total hysteria over completely surmountable setbacks. People want your statements to feel true because they have beef with Uber's culture, business practice, etc. so they're bending their perception of every event to fit their model. This is a discussion thread about how a self-driving car that was, according to evidence so far, hit by another driver who failed to yield. And basically every comment is talking about how reckless and irresponsible the company is, and intimating that it was probably Uber's fault. Everyone is just having the conversation they want to have, regardless of how it contacts reality. "Their existing business is loosing [sic] money in most places with no end in sight." According to whom, you? Why should I be even slightly credulous that this company with massive market penetration and a product people want has no wherewithal to turn a profit? This whole thread is pure platitude. "Kalanick and his bros are sociopaths". Sure. Keep operating in those terms and see where it gets you. I'm going to stay here on planet Earth, thank you.
- HeavenBanned 10y ago
  It's like this on every single thread on HN re: Uber. It's maddeningly out of touch. Uber is fine.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Around the issue of this crash? Yes. Around the issue of how much Uber needs self-driving to pan out, now? Not so much. Around the reality that Kalanick is bad news, and at the same time utterly in control? Not at all. I see what you're talking about, but overall I see (although not necessarily in this thread) people talking about Uber operating a VC subsidized per-ride loss, and just how much they need self-driving to pan out in a hurry.
  - sebastos 10y ago
    Fair points. If I were a VC, I wouldn't be thrilled with Kalanick at the helm, even if I wasn't about to sell sell sell. I get why people might be concerned about the operating losses, at least to first order. But I just don't see the structure of how people think this disintegration is going to happen. To me, it looks like a very solid business model that makes tons of cash and spends tons of cash (like Amazon). I don't see some kind of tower of Babel built entirely on the perception of value that could topple at any moment (Twitter). People love using ride-sharing apps, and there's no way that's going to change in the near future. Even if their self-driving-car play isn't working out, I don't see why it has to pan out _now_. They can always just fall back on their massively successful core business..
downandout 10y ago
>It should be frightening to anyone on the streets that Uber managers are making decisions to put self driving cars on the road. Something that probably should have been in the article's title that this accident occurred because the human driver in the other car failed to yield. While Uber is certainly a very flawed company, neither its technology nor its people were at fault here.
- ubernostrum 10y ago
  In theory one of the benefits of an autonomous car is its many-times-faster-than-human reaction and the fact that it doesn't ever get "distracted". Meanwhile, multiple brands of existing, human-driven cars already have the ability to detect an impending collision and avoid it, either through automatic emergency braking or other mechanisms. If Uber isn't even caught up to the stuff that's in cars for the general public, then what the hell are they doing?
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    > Meanwhile, multiple brands of existing, human-driven cars already have the ability to detect an impending collision and avoid it, either through automatic emergency braking or other mechanisms. Without more details we can't say whether this accident would have been avoidable with those systems.
  - andrewflnr 10y ago
    While I agree in general, I don't think we have enough details here to say that this was preventable by the Uber car, or any existing car. It's possible that the officially-at-fault car was sufficiently outside the envelope of expected behavior that no system could have prevented the crash. Stuff like predicting whether someone else will yield is basically mind reading, a Hard Problem in the general case.
  - nradov 10y ago
    Existing active collision avoidance systems only work in the front aspect. Passive warning systems will give warnings about crossing traffic in some limited cases but it's still on the driver to react. That's about it for human-driven cars right now.
abandonliberty 10y ago
Abusing legal gray areas is a fundamental part of their business model. They were able to position this in a positive 'move fast and break things' light. Now people are noticing things are broken and are fixing them. For example, they were abusing an exception for businesses grossing <30K a year to not pay taxes in Canada. That law is now being reviewed. As far as I can tell Uber's corporate culture is both self-interested, self-righteous, and entirely inconsiderate of the people and markets they affect. You can only piss in the pool so long before it catches up with you, and they don't have any other runway left. We have some of the greatest minds in the world collaborating, and this is one of their primary ambassadors.
- will_hughes 10y ago
  > Abusing legal gray areas is a fundamental part of their business model. Uber was/is quite willing to break the law (and encourage their drivers to do so, with lies and misdirection), even in areas where it's very clear that they're in the wrong. Leveraging a ton of market anger about the existing taxi services helped them get started, it's unclear if it'll be enough to sustain them.
- jimmywanger 10y ago
  > Abusing legal gray areas What abuses are you talking about? Their assertion that they're not a taxi company holds some water, and their 30k a year exemption in Canada is for independent subcontractors, which Uber argues that its drivers are. Every company looks at laws and sees just how much money they have to pay. There is no abuse in this case.

dorfsmay 10y ago

I'm surprised we don't hear more about Mercedes. I don't know how much of a story they have when it comes to self-driving car, but they already build cars, and they already have a well established rent-by-the-minute business: car2go.com. If and when they figure out self-driving cars all they have to do is slowly replace the people driven car2go by self-driven ones and they'll become a leader of that market without any fuss!

M_Grey 10y ago
As a rule, Mercedes tends to keep mum on tech they're not ready to roll out (at least to the S-Class), and they like it be pretty near perfect at that piont.
matt4077 10y ago
Every single carmaker will offer self-driving as an option at first, then as a standard feature. They'll also come with software that allows you to flip a switch and see your car take off to earn some money whenever you tell it – or it is reasonably sure from experience - that you won't need it for a while. The manufacturer will take care of billing and insure you against vandalism for a 30% cut. Meanwhile, Uber is but the faint memory of a bro-themed ponzi scheme. They have nothing that would allow them to remain relevant: no reputation, no technology, and -50 billion in capital. All they got to scale was the one part that's irrelevant: managing drivers. And groping women, of course.
- stormbrew 10y ago
  I think it's far more likely you'll just be able to lease a timeshare on a car than this complicated scenario people bring up where a company sells you a car and then rents it back from you. Like, the tax implications of this scheme are pretty obnoxious alone for someone who isn't doing it for primary or even secondary income.
  - btown 10y ago
    But this way it's the car buyer who assumes the risk in case the timesharing model is less lucrative. The manufacturer doesn't want to hold any more inventory than it already has to.
    - baumandm 10y ago
      Probably other companies will step in to manage the inventory and match cars to users, just like existing rental car companies. Although in the short term, I can see the appeal of selling cars with a built-in ride-share mode. Many current car owners are likely to continue to want to own their own cars. If manufacturers can provide this feature out-of-the-box, it may help drive car sales to people who want to own cars and get "free money".
- AJ007 10y ago
  There seems to be a big jump from what could happen to what definitely will happen. I would say highly likely that whatever car companies are left standing, one or more of them will have fairly good margins. How the ownership ends up working out remains to be seen. May be cities will cut deals with a specific company and all non-commercial vehicles will be controlled by that municipality. May be Google Maps will turn in to a transport marketplace and operators will bid based on destination. Likely Uber is going to have a very tough time. Likely they can cut a lot of the excess and operating expenses and be profitable for a while but at the loss of growth and new markets. Uber paved the way for a lot of this. There is no way Google, Apple, Tesla or definitely an established car company would have been able to plow their way in to these local markets, bypassing and ignoring regulations until the point that cities became dependent on Uber. Now it is done, and it isn't particular a moat for Uber. But they fucking did it, they are the ones who need the recognition for it.
heisenbit 10y ago
Both Mercedes and BMW (DriveNow as a co-venture with Sixt) run car sharing businesses. In terms of cities served Uber beats them hands down. Mercedes has 14.000 and BMW 4000 cars on the streets (wikipedia). That is a fraction of what Uber can mobilize. For Uber to be taken on they would need to scale up a magnitude or even two. At that scale it would affect their existing business and their now increasing engagement is an indication how serious the companies are taking this shift. Transportation as a service is clearly something. Car ownership is not always the best economic solution for an individual. The sharing demand exists but no one has established a large scale sustainable enterprise around it. What is needed? - Capital first and foremost as cars are not cheap. Two models so far: -- Uber leveraging car owner capital. That area is really opaque but one can assume individuals capital cost is higher than manufacturers especially as Uber drivers likely have not the best credit ratings. The volume Uber can leverage here is - assuming 500.000 drivers with cars worth $20.000 then this is 10 Billion USD. -- Car manufacturer and car rental companies (in the past often linked to manufacturers). There is some synergy in the vertical integration e.g. through manufacturing capacity management, tailored car features and marketing. - Fleet servicing. Uber has managed to shift that to drivers. - Driver. Uber has an individual driving. There may be autonomous vehicles. Then there is the person renting assuming driving license. - Critical mass. There is a focus on serving cities. I suspect autonomous vehicles may be vital to serve the wider area. - Insurance. Liability needs to be clarified and forms of insurance found if autonomous cars are allowed.
- ghaff 10y ago
  > The sharing demand exists but no one has established a large scale sustainable enterprise around it. Zipcar et al? I guess my question is the following: If you don't want exclusive ownership and use of your vehicle, why would you want the hassles of ownership at all? I do get the some money on the side argument but I really wonder if it makes sense with cars given that a lot of depreciation/costs is because of mileage. It's a bit different from the AirBnB situation.
- dorfsmay 10y ago
  Exactly. Today Uber relies on the owner/driver for the capital behind the vehicle, the vehicle acquisition, servicing, insurance, etc... Current car-sharing business (car2go, zipcar, etc...) already had to figure out all those parts, the only piece missing for them, like for everybody else so far, is the self-driving technology. > That is a fraction of what Uber can mobilize I don't understand your point. You're saying Uber will have random people buy self-driving car for them, service it etc... and let Uber use it? They'd effectively become a pico-bank in a very risky investment... Or am I missing something here?
Strom 10y ago
Mercedes released a video [1] back in 2013 showing pretty decent driving. I imagine they didn't stop with progress and have even more capable systems today. Mercedes-Benz has successfully completed the first autonomous long-distance drive ever, involving both town and cross-country traffic, using near-production-standard sensor systems. The Mercedes-Benz S 500 INTELLIGENT DRIVE research vehicle covered 100 kilometers from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, under real traffic conditions and complex situations including traffic lights, roundabouts, pedestrians, cyclists and trams. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AihC5flC-38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AihC5flC-38
- manmal 10y ago
  I read an article couple months ago in a RL car magazine where they test-drove a Mercedes prototype. They had the impression that it drove almost perfect, even dealing with complicated highway construction sites without proper safety lines.
- saddlerustle 10y ago
  Keep in mind that the technology Mercedes is actually shipping today is said to be worse than Honda's and significantly worse than Tesla's [1] [1] http://www.thedrive.com/tech/5707/the-war-for-autonomous-driving-part-iii-us-vs-germany-vs-japan http://www.thedrive.com/tech/5707/the-war-for-autonomous-dri...
- frik 10y ago
  Mercedes show cased a self driving van in the 1980s, with stereo black/white cameras, and a big computer in the back. But can you buy a Merc Maybach S class with self driving comparable to Tesla S autopilot 2? No. That's why you see more and more Tesla S these days, plus it is all electric too.
- thinkingthingy 10y ago
  My husband takes casual carpool most mornings to SF from Berkeley, and last week got a ride in one of the Mercedes Intelligent Drive cars (he mentioned the model, but I forgot). He said the driver didn't have to handle the car at all once he was picked up. The car drove itself onto the freeway, all the way over on the Bay Bridge, navigated the exit into SF and drove several blocks in the city. He said the driver took over only at the very end, when he pulled to the side of the road to drop my husband and the other passenger off. Pretty incredible!
anigbrowl 10y ago
Mercedes comes from a tradition of 'keep your mouth shut and then deliver a premium product.' Self-driving cars are not a market where 'move fast and break things' is an acceptable consumer philosophy and Uber demonstrates how tricky it is to reposition your brand from naughty to trustworthy. Mercedes, by contrast, can just run an ad in a year or two announcing that the new Z-Class or whatever it's called can drive you around in any weather and be believed by the vast majority of consumers.
- noir_lord 10y ago
  Absolutely agreed and the kind of credibility Mercedes has in the market takes decades of excellent execution to accrue and a few years to fritter it away. Given that the gap between Mercedes and run of the mill saloon has been closing in real terms rapidly (when I was a kid cars where serviced every 5-12,0000 miles, these days it's not unusual for service periods to be more than twice that with 7 year warranties and the generally higher build/reliability across the board) their brand of understated excellence is a key part of why they can still charge so much.
qume 10y ago
I worked with a guy who had previously interned at Daimler (Mercedes) in Germany working on self driving cars, although it wasn't called that - I don't remember the phrase he used. This was in 2005.

api 10y ago

The worst part of Uber's situation is that they have priced themselves out of any reasonable path to further fund raising. Even a successful IPO would be a huge down round. I've never understood how valuations computed from white powder are strategically in the best interest of... anyone? Maybe someone more clueful about the nuances of VC can enlighten me. Even if Uber can make the Google suit and the harassment culture go away, I still don't see how they can ever justify that valuation. Every car company is about to ship (or has) some form of auto drive and there are no strong barriers to competing with Uber on ride sharing. Transportation is a commodity. How's Lyft doing?

zouhair 10y ago

The whole business model of Uber was about no legal compliance.

sebastos 10y ago

If Uber were a publicly traded company I'd be buying as much stock as possible right now. All I see is total hysteria over completely surmountable setbacks. People want your statements to feel true because they have beef with Uber's culture, business practice, etc. so they're bending their perception of every event to fit their model. This is a discussion thread about how a self-driving car that was, according to evidence so far, hit by another driver who failed to yield. And basically every comment is talking about how reckless and irresponsible the company is, and intimating that it was probably Uber's fault. Everyone is just having the conversation they want to have, regardless of how it contacts reality. "Their existing business is loosing [sic] money in most places with no end in sight." According to whom, you? Why should I be even slightly credulous that this company with massive market penetration and a product people want has no wherewithal to turn a profit? This whole thread is pure platitude. "Kalanick and his bros are sociopaths". Sure. Keep operating in those terms and see where it gets you. I'm going to stay here on planet Earth, thank you.

HeavenBanned 10y ago
It's like this on every single thread on HN re: Uber. It's maddeningly out of touch. Uber is fine.
M_Grey 10y ago
Around the issue of this crash? Yes. Around the issue of how much Uber needs self-driving to pan out, now? Not so much. Around the reality that Kalanick is bad news, and at the same time utterly in control? Not at all. I see what you're talking about, but overall I see (although not necessarily in this thread) people talking about Uber operating a VC subsidized per-ride loss, and just how much they need self-driving to pan out in a hurry.
- sebastos 10y ago
  Fair points. If I were a VC, I wouldn't be thrilled with Kalanick at the helm, even if I wasn't about to sell sell sell. I get why people might be concerned about the operating losses, at least to first order. But I just don't see the structure of how people think this disintegration is going to happen. To me, it looks like a very solid business model that makes tons of cash and spends tons of cash (like Amazon). I don't see some kind of tower of Babel built entirely on the perception of value that could topple at any moment (Twitter). People love using ride-sharing apps, and there's no way that's going to change in the near future. Even if their self-driving-car play isn't working out, I don't see why it has to pan out _now_. They can always just fall back on their massively successful core business..

downandout 10y ago

>It should be frightening to anyone on the streets that Uber managers are making decisions to put self driving cars on the road. Something that probably should have been in the article's title that this accident occurred because the human driver in the other car failed to yield. While Uber is certainly a very flawed company, neither its technology nor its people were at fault here.

ubernostrum 10y ago
In theory one of the benefits of an autonomous car is its many-times-faster-than-human reaction and the fact that it doesn't ever get "distracted". Meanwhile, multiple brands of existing, human-driven cars already have the ability to detect an impending collision and avoid it, either through automatic emergency braking or other mechanisms. If Uber isn't even caught up to the stuff that's in cars for the general public, then what the hell are they doing?
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  > Meanwhile, multiple brands of existing, human-driven cars already have the ability to detect an impending collision and avoid it, either through automatic emergency braking or other mechanisms. Without more details we can't say whether this accident would have been avoidable with those systems.
- andrewflnr 10y ago
  While I agree in general, I don't think we have enough details here to say that this was preventable by the Uber car, or any existing car. It's possible that the officially-at-fault car was sufficiently outside the envelope of expected behavior that no system could have prevented the crash. Stuff like predicting whether someone else will yield is basically mind reading, a Hard Problem in the general case.
- nradov 10y ago
  Existing active collision avoidance systems only work in the front aspect. Passive warning systems will give warnings about crossing traffic in some limited cases but it's still on the driver to react. That's about it for human-driven cars right now.

abandonliberty 10y ago

Abusing legal gray areas is a fundamental part of their business model. They were able to position this in a positive 'move fast and break things' light. Now people are noticing things are broken and are fixing them. For example, they were abusing an exception for businesses grossing <30K a year to not pay taxes in Canada. That law is now being reviewed. As far as I can tell Uber's corporate culture is both self-interested, self-righteous, and entirely inconsiderate of the people and markets they affect. You can only piss in the pool so long before it catches up with you, and they don't have any other runway left. We have some of the greatest minds in the world collaborating, and this is one of their primary ambassadors.

will_hughes 10y ago
> Abusing legal gray areas is a fundamental part of their business model. Uber was/is quite willing to break the law (and encourage their drivers to do so, with lies and misdirection), even in areas where it's very clear that they're in the wrong. Leveraging a ton of market anger about the existing taxi services helped them get started, it's unclear if it'll be enough to sustain them.
jimmywanger 10y ago
> Abusing legal gray areas What abuses are you talking about? Their assertion that they're not a taxi company holds some water, and their 30k a year exemption in Canada is for independent subcontractors, which Uber argues that its drivers are. Every company looks at laws and sees just how much money they have to pay. There is no abuse in this case.