5 ms·

It seems the "Death Star" strategy is at least as flawed as its namesake, and really, can they keep selling a fantasy of just-around-the-corner level 5 automati

It seems the "Death Star" strategy is at least as flawed as its namesake, and really, can they keep selling a fantasy of just-around-the-corner level 5 automation to rich idiots?

ghaff 9y ago
A lot of people still seem to believe that fantasy. I find that a bit puzzling as many of those people would be more realistic about other engineering timelines. But there's nonetheless this belief in door-to-door automation that's relevant in a VC time horizon.
matt4077 9y ago
I don't even understand how self-driving cars would help Uber. It seems their biggest advantage is their experience with managing all the different ways human drivers can screw up. The day Mercedes ships the first self-driving car, it will come with "Go make yourself useful"-mode where it shuttles other people from A to X. There'll be dozens of almost identical services that handle the transactions and insurance for 3%-4% of the revenue. Nothing Uber has done so far will be helpful in such a world. Because you won't need to manage humans, to grope women, or to break workplace safety laws in such a business.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  By allowing them to not have to pay and subsidice drivers the primary expense.
- apendleton 9y ago
  Your model assumes most people still own general-purpose cars, and farm them out on the side. Uber's assumes it will become more possible for people not to, and that they will instead rely on trip-optimized vehicles available centrally on a case-by-case basis. I think they have reason for optimism there... For one, many times when Uber is in highest demand are also times when car owners most want to use their own vehicles (say, rush hour), so this notion that an Uber-like service can rely entirely on spare hours of personal vehicles is a little silly; sure, there are tons of idle cars at 4am on a Tuesday morning, but who needs to use them all then? For another, I can totally foresee a future where we move away from this idiotic practice of having the typical vehicle on the road by a five-seater with one person in it, which is hugely inefficient. Commuting alone? Have a tiny car. Going on a trip with the family? Enjoy this self-driving SUV. Need to get from DC to Florida? Enjoy this self-driving bed, and wake up at your destination in the morning. Etc., etc.
  - semi-extrinsic 9y ago
    Self-driving bed? Really? Is this in the hypothetical future where the Land of the Free, the home of muscle cars, pickup trucks and road trips, has banned cars driven by humans? Otherwise there's no way to make that safe.
    - sqeaky 9y ago
      Self driving cars are already safer than people when their sensors are not screwed by the weather. As soon as solve the snow and rainy night problem the self driving beds will be a thing and much safer than you or I driving. Sure some idiot could still hit, but a bed doesn't make that woes, if anything it allows ample mattress to act as crumple zone. Also why are trucks and muscles car bad? Can they somehow not co-exist on the roads with other cars? Are they allergic to self-driving cars?
  - sqeaky 9y ago
    People don't give up luxuries or quality of life. Everyone knows smoking kills people, its gone down with that knowledge but leveled off at millions of smokers who do it for the pleasure and damn the consequences. Now that vaping is a thing that is going down again. Americans don't reduce power consumption, recycle in meaningful quantities or take shorter showers. What is making our grid more clean is more renewables (I see a new wind turbine almost everytime I drive on I-80). Recycling is still an issue but sort it from the automatically and that would fix our problem. Water starved areas would rather pipe and truck water in that let their lawns die. Public transit seems to work best in areas were being faster or more convenient is a car is the luxury. It will never happen in Omaha or any other widespread city. I can get to anywhere in this city in 20 minutes on I-80, I might spend that long waiting for Uber or Lyft. Flip it around and look at Manhattan to that same 10 or 20 miles might take more than an hour by car once you factor in parking and other hassles, the subway, buses and taxis are omnipresent (so you don't need to find your own inconveniently placed vehicle) and often faster then you don't need to park it. Traffic is just like any other human problem we will have to create hard solutions for problems that would be easy if we could all just pull back a little.
- semi-extrinsic 9y ago
  > The day Mercedes ships the first self-driving car, it will come with "Go make yourself useful"-mode I strongly doubt it. The first properly self-driving Mercedes will be an S-class, and posh people don't buy $100,000 limousines just to rent them out for $14.99 an hour.
- sbarre 9y ago
  Who's going to design, build and operate this "Go make yourself useful" mode, exactly? Car manufacturers will not want to do this themselves. They will want to partner with an existing player who will manage their fleet.
  - Theodores 9y ago
    Depends on whether they believe in vertical integration or not. It also depends on there being 'existing players to manage their fleet'. Size of dealership matters too, a large dealership means that a manufacturer could take the vertical integration route that bit easier than the manufacturer that licenses some third party AI and only has a few dealers. The app to monetize the self driving cars is very easy to write compared to the 'app' required to do the self-driving. Why would this 'book your ride' front end be given away to anyone from Uber to Hertz?
- valuearb 9y ago
  Few mercedes owners will want strangers in their self driving mercedes. And those that do will need a way to connect with riders, so they'll sign up with the most popular ride sharing service, uber. Riders will happily use them, by signing up through uber. No one is downloading apps for dozens of other fragmented services.

It seems the "Death Star" strategy is at least as flawed as its namesake, and really, can they keep selling a fantasy of just-around-the-corner level 5 automation to rich idiots?

ghaff 9y ago

A lot of people still seem to believe that fantasy. I find that a bit puzzling as many of those people would be more realistic about other engineering timelines. But there's nonetheless this belief in door-to-door automation that's relevant in a VC time horizon.

matt4077 9y ago

I don't even understand how self-driving cars would help Uber. It seems their biggest advantage is their experience with managing all the different ways human drivers can screw up. The day Mercedes ships the first self-driving car, it will come with "Go make yourself useful"-mode where it shuttles other people from A to X. There'll be dozens of almost identical services that handle the transactions and insurance for 3%-4% of the revenue. Nothing Uber has done so far will be helpful in such a world. Because you won't need to manage humans, to grope women, or to break workplace safety laws in such a business.

ThomPete 9y ago
By allowing them to not have to pay and subsidice drivers the primary expense.
apendleton 9y ago
Your model assumes most people still own general-purpose cars, and farm them out on the side. Uber's assumes it will become more possible for people not to, and that they will instead rely on trip-optimized vehicles available centrally on a case-by-case basis. I think they have reason for optimism there... For one, many times when Uber is in highest demand are also times when car owners most want to use their own vehicles (say, rush hour), so this notion that an Uber-like service can rely entirely on spare hours of personal vehicles is a little silly; sure, there are tons of idle cars at 4am on a Tuesday morning, but who needs to use them all then? For another, I can totally foresee a future where we move away from this idiotic practice of having the typical vehicle on the road by a five-seater with one person in it, which is hugely inefficient. Commuting alone? Have a tiny car. Going on a trip with the family? Enjoy this self-driving SUV. Need to get from DC to Florida? Enjoy this self-driving bed, and wake up at your destination in the morning. Etc., etc.
- semi-extrinsic 9y ago
  Self-driving bed? Really? Is this in the hypothetical future where the Land of the Free, the home of muscle cars, pickup trucks and road trips, has banned cars driven by humans? Otherwise there's no way to make that safe.
  - sqeaky 9y ago
    Self driving cars are already safer than people when their sensors are not screwed by the weather. As soon as solve the snow and rainy night problem the self driving beds will be a thing and much safer than you or I driving. Sure some idiot could still hit, but a bed doesn't make that woes, if anything it allows ample mattress to act as crumple zone. Also why are trucks and muscles car bad? Can they somehow not co-exist on the roads with other cars? Are they allergic to self-driving cars?
- sqeaky 9y ago
  People don't give up luxuries or quality of life. Everyone knows smoking kills people, its gone down with that knowledge but leveled off at millions of smokers who do it for the pleasure and damn the consequences. Now that vaping is a thing that is going down again. Americans don't reduce power consumption, recycle in meaningful quantities or take shorter showers. What is making our grid more clean is more renewables (I see a new wind turbine almost everytime I drive on I-80). Recycling is still an issue but sort it from the automatically and that would fix our problem. Water starved areas would rather pipe and truck water in that let their lawns die. Public transit seems to work best in areas were being faster or more convenient is a car is the luxury. It will never happen in Omaha or any other widespread city. I can get to anywhere in this city in 20 minutes on I-80, I might spend that long waiting for Uber or Lyft. Flip it around and look at Manhattan to that same 10 or 20 miles might take more than an hour by car once you factor in parking and other hassles, the subway, buses and taxis are omnipresent (so you don't need to find your own inconveniently placed vehicle) and often faster then you don't need to park it. Traffic is just like any other human problem we will have to create hard solutions for problems that would be easy if we could all just pull back a little.
semi-extrinsic 9y ago
> The day Mercedes ships the first self-driving car, it will come with "Go make yourself useful"-mode I strongly doubt it. The first properly self-driving Mercedes will be an S-class, and posh people don't buy $100,000 limousines just to rent them out for $14.99 an hour.
sbarre 9y ago
Who's going to design, build and operate this "Go make yourself useful" mode, exactly? Car manufacturers will not want to do this themselves. They will want to partner with an existing player who will manage their fleet.
- Theodores 9y ago
  Depends on whether they believe in vertical integration or not. It also depends on there being 'existing players to manage their fleet'. Size of dealership matters too, a large dealership means that a manufacturer could take the vertical integration route that bit easier than the manufacturer that licenses some third party AI and only has a few dealers. The app to monetize the self driving cars is very easy to write compared to the 'app' required to do the self-driving. Why would this 'book your ride' front end be given away to anyone from Uber to Hertz?
valuearb 9y ago
Few mercedes owners will want strangers in their self driving mercedes. And those that do will need a way to connect with riders, so they'll sign up with the most popular ride sharing service, uber. Riders will happily use them, by signing up through uber. No one is downloading apps for dozens of other fragmented services.