4 ms·

> This really is the endgame for both Uber and Lyft. I believe so too, but from a slightly different angle: I believe self-driving vehicles will literally mean

> This really is the endgame for both Uber and Lyft. I believe so too, but from a slightly different angle: I believe self-driving vehicles will literally mean the end for both Uber & Lyft (and they only accelerate their fate by investing into it). To understand why: their inherent value is their ability to match human drivers with customers. They both do such a good job at it, that the switching costs between the 2 apps are quite low (first sign of weak competitive advantage). Now, take away the difficult problem of finding human drivers at the right place and the right time. You now have self-driving cars that make no mistakes, have no scheduling issues, do not get tired etc. It’s way easier to fullfil demand. But, you’re not the only one working on this problem. Google, Tesla, (probably Apple too) are all actively working on the same problem. And they probably have 10X the computing/engineering/cash/data resources to solve this problem. What are Uber/Lyft left with? A fancy app with a button (which they have already proven to easily clone). Not only that, they also have to compete with the native operating systems (and future devices) that the big corps control. They don’t even own their maps! So yes, in 2023, you will probably be able to order a Level-5 self driving vehicle to your doorstep with a wink of your half robotic eye, but it will not be Uber or Lyft.

nemothekid 9y ago
Tesla has 10x the computing/engineering/cash/data resources to solve the self driving car problem than Uber? In revenue/market cap/profit Uber and Tesla are nearly equal in size. The way I see it, Lyft and Uber are already "big corps", and there are likely several logistic concerns that give Lyft/Uber a major head start on Google despite Google's alleged software superiority. However, I don't see Google releasing a massive self driving fleet in San Francisco and simultaneously capturing significant market share overnight.
- bendauphinee 9y ago
  Tesla already has a fleet of cars mining driving data for it, putting them way ahead of Uber.
  - greentrust 9y ago
    The amount of data collected by your average Goog/Cruise/Uber autonomous vehicle is on the order of gigabytes per minute. I highly doubt Tesla is phoning home data at that level of detail.
    - jsjohnst 9y ago
      Correct, but how many cars does Goog/Cruise/Uber have on the road daily collecting this high data rate? 1k? Let’s be overly optimistic and say 10k. Remember, normal driver driven cars don’t apply here generally, just the research cars. Tesla on the other hand has hundreds of thousands of cars on the road and is rapidly on their way to 1M cars. Data won’t be as raw and abundant, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t potentially very useful none the less.
      - jaimex2 9y ago
        Tesla's are currently sending back images of things they have trouble identifying only. They are ironing out the last % of edge cases it seems. Not sure how close this puts them in the race.
      - visarga 9y ago
        The kind of data Tesla collects is useful for general self driving, less so for solving hard cases. For that we need simulations and real life enactment, like Google does. We already have the basic data, we need the special case data now, or we could use the driving data from Tesla to discover new special cases. Simply putting more SDCs on the road does not guarantee they will focus on the data they need.
        jsjohnst 9y ago
        > Simply putting more SDCs on the road does not guarantee they will focus on the data they need. Agree completely
  - kbyatnal 9y ago
    Tesla isn't going to win this war. They are slowly realizing that yes, in fact, you do need LIDAR to make self driving work.
- adjkant 9y ago
  If I'm not mistaken, Google is partnered with Lyft. https://outline.com/qMtpFx https://outline.com/qMtpFx
  - jsjohnst 9y ago
    Virtually everybody working on self-driving cars in a big way has partnered with Lyft at some point (outside Uber I guess).
- melvinmt 9y ago
  > In revenue/market cap/profit Uber and Tesla are nearly equal in size. It’s not just cash. Who has been building cars with smart sensors for more than 10 years? Who has self-driving cars on the road already? Who has factories to scale this up to a level that’s required to build an enormous fleet to replace all existing cars? It doesn’t even come close.
- ProAm 9y ago
  Telsa is having a hard time getting the Model 3 to market. I put self driving cars so far in their future I wouldnt consider them a threat at all. They will eventually be in the market, but well probably have people on Mars first.
  - Robotbeat 9y ago
    This production bottleneck is a very temporary thing. They had the same problem with the original Roadster, the Model S, and the Model X. All eventually resolved. I see no reason they won't eventually resolve it for the Model 3, as well. It may (read: will and has) take longer than they wished, but they aren't in anywhere near the danger of going under as they were with, say, the original Roadster, so this is just a matter of time, in my opinion. The danger comes in the fact that electric cars are ultimately fairly simple to make (although Tesla does a particularly good job at it), and if their competitors just got their act together, Tesla would have a tough time. But in my opinion, as long as they're the only ones with a really good charging network (the others are both much smaller and much slower... and the few stations that aren't slow require an upgraded car), they have a significant head start on their competitors. Production bottleneck will eventually clear. But having demand exceed supply is really, REALLY good for Tesla's business as it gives them access to interest-free capital (from reservations) and the reservations also show the existence of sufficient demand to justify financing continued expansion. So, Tesla keeps coming out with new products even before the previous bottlenecks have been cleared in order to maintain the state of having demand greatly exceed supply. And these new products usually share a technology core, i.e. battery modules and electronics, thus allowing them to traverse as far down the learning curve as is possible, which is a multiplicative effect that improves every other product. Using larger batteries than you might think strictly necessary only amplifies this effect while giving them a quality and performance advantage over their competitors. Tesla will also have an advantage in their charging network of having cheaper electricity with faster charging than anyone else. The Semi product offers 7 cents per kWh, which is lower than residential rates just about anywhere AND is ultra fast-charging. So assuming they can meet that rate, Tesla will have a large advantage in logistics costs even compared to other electric self-driving providers.
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  > Tesla has 10x the computing/engineering/cash/data resources to solve the self driving car problem than Uber? I think GP was being a bit hyperbolic, but I think (but don’t know for sure) Tesla might have 10x the telemetry data. Uber could pass them up though very rapidly if they made some changes to how drivers use phones and what data they collect (collecting video and accelerometer / gyro data for example).
amelius 9y ago
Will there not be patent issues?
twelve40 9y ago
Uber owns their maps.
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  This seems to prove otherwise: https://instagram.com/p/BdJvxwmn2ri/ https://instagram.com/p/BdJvxwmn2ri/ Side by side as of a few minutes ago.
  - twelve40 9y ago
    Prove what?? And where did I claim it does not currently use Google Maps? There is an Uber team of hundreds of developers and operators that is building out their own maps service. When and in what form it becomes available in your location, I have no idea.
    - jsjohnst 9y ago
      Really? > Uber owns their maps. That seems rather definitive compared to: > And where did I claim it does not currently use Google Maps? Don’t say things in matter of fact form and then push the blame on the questioner when evidence is shown that your “fact” seems anything but.
fragmede 9y ago
> A fancy app with a button Yes but that app is branded Uber/Lyft, and while building an app with a button is easy, when was the last time you tried searching Bing or DuckDuckGo because Google Search was returning nonsense? There's also question of mindshare; getting people to install an app and create an account is difficult enough, never mind B2B business contracts, such as uberpool being a recognized WageWorks commuter benefit, that are business-y to replicate. There have been many solid competitors (both hardware and software) to the iPhone, but there's still only one Apple.

nemothekid 9y ago

Tesla has 10x the computing/engineering/cash/data resources to solve the self driving car problem than Uber? In revenue/market cap/profit Uber and Tesla are nearly equal in size. The way I see it, Lyft and Uber are already "big corps", and there are likely several logistic concerns that give Lyft/Uber a major head start on Google despite Google's alleged software superiority. However, I don't see Google releasing a massive self driving fleet in San Francisco and simultaneously capturing significant market share overnight.

bendauphinee 9y ago
Tesla already has a fleet of cars mining driving data for it, putting them way ahead of Uber.
- greentrust 9y ago
  The amount of data collected by your average Goog/Cruise/Uber autonomous vehicle is on the order of gigabytes per minute. I highly doubt Tesla is phoning home data at that level of detail.
  - jsjohnst 9y ago
    Correct, but how many cars does Goog/Cruise/Uber have on the road daily collecting this high data rate? 1k? Let’s be overly optimistic and say 10k. Remember, normal driver driven cars don’t apply here generally, just the research cars. Tesla on the other hand has hundreds of thousands of cars on the road and is rapidly on their way to 1M cars. Data won’t be as raw and abundant, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t potentially very useful none the less.
    - jaimex2 9y ago
      Tesla's are currently sending back images of things they have trouble identifying only. They are ironing out the last % of edge cases it seems. Not sure how close this puts them in the race.
    - visarga 9y ago
      The kind of data Tesla collects is useful for general self driving, less so for solving hard cases. For that we need simulations and real life enactment, like Google does. We already have the basic data, we need the special case data now, or we could use the driving data from Tesla to discover new special cases. Simply putting more SDCs on the road does not guarantee they will focus on the data they need.
      - jsjohnst 9y ago
        > Simply putting more SDCs on the road does not guarantee they will focus on the data they need. Agree completely
- kbyatnal 9y ago
  Tesla isn't going to win this war. They are slowly realizing that yes, in fact, you do need LIDAR to make self driving work.
adjkant 9y ago
If I'm not mistaken, Google is partnered with Lyft. https://outline.com/qMtpFx https://outline.com/qMtpFx
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  Virtually everybody working on self-driving cars in a big way has partnered with Lyft at some point (outside Uber I guess).
melvinmt 9y ago
> In revenue/market cap/profit Uber and Tesla are nearly equal in size. It’s not just cash. Who has been building cars with smart sensors for more than 10 years? Who has self-driving cars on the road already? Who has factories to scale this up to a level that’s required to build an enormous fleet to replace all existing cars? It doesn’t even come close.
ProAm 9y ago
Telsa is having a hard time getting the Model 3 to market. I put self driving cars so far in their future I wouldnt consider them a threat at all. They will eventually be in the market, but well probably have people on Mars first.
- Robotbeat 9y ago
  This production bottleneck is a very temporary thing. They had the same problem with the original Roadster, the Model S, and the Model X. All eventually resolved. I see no reason they won't eventually resolve it for the Model 3, as well. It may (read: will and has) take longer than they wished, but they aren't in anywhere near the danger of going under as they were with, say, the original Roadster, so this is just a matter of time, in my opinion. The danger comes in the fact that electric cars are ultimately fairly simple to make (although Tesla does a particularly good job at it), and if their competitors just got their act together, Tesla would have a tough time. But in my opinion, as long as they're the only ones with a really good charging network (the others are both much smaller and much slower... and the few stations that aren't slow require an upgraded car), they have a significant head start on their competitors. Production bottleneck will eventually clear. But having demand exceed supply is really, REALLY good for Tesla's business as it gives them access to interest-free capital (from reservations) and the reservations also show the existence of sufficient demand to justify financing continued expansion. So, Tesla keeps coming out with new products even before the previous bottlenecks have been cleared in order to maintain the state of having demand greatly exceed supply. And these new products usually share a technology core, i.e. battery modules and electronics, thus allowing them to traverse as far down the learning curve as is possible, which is a multiplicative effect that improves every other product. Using larger batteries than you might think strictly necessary only amplifies this effect while giving them a quality and performance advantage over their competitors. Tesla will also have an advantage in their charging network of having cheaper electricity with faster charging than anyone else. The Semi product offers 7 cents per kWh, which is lower than residential rates just about anywhere AND is ultra fast-charging. So assuming they can meet that rate, Tesla will have a large advantage in logistics costs even compared to other electric self-driving providers.
jsjohnst 9y ago
> Tesla has 10x the computing/engineering/cash/data resources to solve the self driving car problem than Uber? I think GP was being a bit hyperbolic, but I think (but don’t know for sure) Tesla might have 10x the telemetry data. Uber could pass them up though very rapidly if they made some changes to how drivers use phones and what data they collect (collecting video and accelerometer / gyro data for example).

amelius 9y ago

Will there not be patent issues?

twelve40 9y ago

Uber owns their maps.

jsjohnst 9y ago
This seems to prove otherwise: https://instagram.com/p/BdJvxwmn2ri/ https://instagram.com/p/BdJvxwmn2ri/ Side by side as of a few minutes ago.
- twelve40 9y ago
  Prove what?? And where did I claim it does not currently use Google Maps? There is an Uber team of hundreds of developers and operators that is building out their own maps service. When and in what form it becomes available in your location, I have no idea.
  - jsjohnst 9y ago
    Really? > Uber owns their maps. That seems rather definitive compared to: > And where did I claim it does not currently use Google Maps? Don’t say things in matter of fact form and then push the blame on the questioner when evidence is shown that your “fact” seems anything but.

fragmede 9y ago

> A fancy app with a button Yes but that app is branded Uber/Lyft, and while building an app with a button is easy, when was the last time you tried searching Bing or DuckDuckGo because Google Search was returning nonsense? There's also question of mindshare; getting people to install an app and create an account is difficult enough, never mind B2B business contracts, such as uberpool being a recognized WageWorks commuter benefit, that are business-y to replicate. There have been many solid competitors (both hardware and software) to the iPhone, but there's still only one Apple.