7 ms·

What is also interesting here is GM's Cruise doesn't need Uber to do what Uber does. However Uber needs cars to do what they do.

xbmcuser 9y ago
I have always argued with my friends that ai cars are more likely to kill uber than help as car manufacturers would start their own taxi service if the ai they have is not good enough would partner with waymo to stay in the market. Uber brings no value.
- netsharc 9y ago
  Uber's value nowadays is that they have the infrastructure as a "connected" taxi service, and they have the users. But I guess that's not unique, Lyft has this too, and installing another taxi app or two is easy enough (or in the case of Google, they'll probably just integrate it to Google Maps -- I just realized why they've integrated Uber into Google Maps, so when they do that with Waymotaxi, no one can scream "anti-competitive move!"). Finding and vetting drivers will be the slightly harder task...
  - matthewmacleod 9y ago
    I just realized why they've integrated Uber into Google Maps Google Ventures invested a large amount in Uber as well – I think they owned something like 5% last time I looked.
  - amelius 9y ago
    > I just realized why they've integrated Uber into Google Maps, so when they do that with Waymotaxi, no one can scream "anti-competitive move! No, they integrated it so that Maps becomes the go-to point for users when they need a ride. That way, Google can snatch those users away when Waymo becomes available. The internet nowadays is all about being the "gatekeeper", and Google just wants to stay in that role.
    - nindalf 9y ago
      Google will do the smart thing too. When Waymotaxi becomes available, they won't remove Uber as an option because that might be anti-competitive. But more relevantly, they wouldn't need to. Back of the envelope calculations say that a self driving cab would be 1/3rd of the cost. Show both in Google maps and let the people decide.
      - bildung 9y ago
        > Back of the envelope calculations say that a self driving cab would be 1/3rd of the cost. I can hardly imagine taking the human drivers out of the equation will be that profitable. Right now, those drivers also do the labor intensive part of maintaining the fleet (gas/power, cleaning, repairs etc.). That part will stay with uber, lyft, google etc.
        lukasm 9y ago
        When car companies will become taxis, repairs will stop being profit centres, so the incentive will be to make more durable cars. Also electric cars will become more convenient with AI Taxi. Uber drivers don't use their cars 24/7. AI Taxi can deliver good between companies in the night. There is so much room for improvement. Right now it won't be 1/3 of the cost, but in the future AI Taxi will cost as much as public transport.
        vonmoltke 9y ago
        > When car companies will become taxis, repairs will stop being profit centres, so the incentive will be to make more durable cars. I think manufacturing cost is a much stronger driver of shitty reliability than repairs being a profit center. After all, in the US dealer system the manufacturer isn't getting the profits, the dealer is. > Uber drivers don't use their cars 24/7. AI Taxi can deliver good between companies in the night. Keeping complex systems like that running constantly is difficult and expensive. It also wears said systems out faster and increases capital costs.
  - j_s 9y ago
    > they have the users As you pointed out, this is a very fickle (price sensitive) group. Anecdata-ly, I can point to many who prioritize Lyft based entirely on personal price comparison history.
gumby 9y ago
I’ve long thought Uber’s plan was acquisition: google up cash to GBF (Get Big Fast) with unassailable network effect (brand, user data, city usage data etc) and then sell off. Just as GM got Cruise (for a song) then a GM would buy uber. That seemed, for the reasons you gave, to be a long shot. Sure the car mfrs don’t have services in their dna, but it won’t cost THAT much to get there. Certainly not the $40-odd billion valuation Uber bears. I also have long believed there will only be 4-5 global car brands once the vehicles drive themselves (fleet production in a monopsony environment destroys the value of branding). I hadn’t guessed that GM might even have been in the runnng.
- threeseed 9y ago
  > there will only be 4-5 global car brands We heard the same thing about mechanical watches when smartwatches came out. But actually what happened was the opposite. People flocked back to mechanical, vintage watches and the watch industry is booming right now. I suspect the same thing will happen with cars. There will be even more car brands than we have today with old classics coming back e.g. Saab but all built off cheaper, commodity electric drive trains and far more differentiated. So you will have AI cars taking over family movers, taxis, buses etc and old, classic cars being modernised and built for drivers.
  - croon 9y ago
    Cars right now are both a practical good and a luxury item (where branding comes in). Clocks were the same, until everyone got a phone in their pocket at which point they were reduced to just a luxury item. I'm sure there will always be car collectors, but buying a car as a luxury item when there's no longer a practical need to own one, is far from comparable to buying a watch.
    - vonmoltke 9y ago
      I have said it before, and will say it again: I do not understand why the assumption is that fully self-driving cars will eliminate individual car ownership. What are the practical reasons to own one now, and why will they be rendered irrelevant by AI drivers?
rcMgD2BwE72F 9y ago
For now. Imagine that many people give up their personally-owed cars and rely on subscriptions in the next few years. Sales of cars would drop fast for manufacturers who don't have a on-demand service network with a sufficient critical mass. Don't forget that giants went close to bankruptcy around 2008 with only a few % of global sales decrease. Their market cap could drop low enough for Uber/Google/Apple (and their investors) to acquire them on the cheap.
- Retric 9y ago
  Uber has massively subsidized users for years, but they don't have the cash to keep doing this for very long or buy a fleet of self driving cars. When self driving cars do take off you can expect a spike of sales as people really want that feature. So, Uber would need to survive ~15 years before any major car companies feel the squeeze and I doubt they can make another 5.
  - caresource_ta 9y ago
    Subsidizing users is one side of the coin. The other side is that Uber has been living beyond their means and they do not have the cash to keep doing this.
  - encoderer 9y ago
    Uber would only need to raise fares 10% and not increase driver payouts to be in the black. The dire predictions don’t seem connected to the balance sheet I’ve looked at. Everybody wags their tongue at uber quarterly “loss” but they pay no attention to the more important measure of free cash flow
    - Retric 9y ago
      Break even does not enable them to pay for massive investments. A 20% increase would cost them significant ridership, but is more or less required to have any significant profit.
      - 9y ago

xbmcuser 9y ago

I have always argued with my friends that ai cars are more likely to kill uber than help as car manufacturers would start their own taxi service if the ai they have is not good enough would partner with waymo to stay in the market. Uber brings no value.

netsharc 9y ago
Uber's value nowadays is that they have the infrastructure as a "connected" taxi service, and they have the users. But I guess that's not unique, Lyft has this too, and installing another taxi app or two is easy enough (or in the case of Google, they'll probably just integrate it to Google Maps -- I just realized why they've integrated Uber into Google Maps, so when they do that with Waymotaxi, no one can scream "anti-competitive move!"). Finding and vetting drivers will be the slightly harder task...
- matthewmacleod 9y ago
  I just realized why they've integrated Uber into Google Maps Google Ventures invested a large amount in Uber as well – I think they owned something like 5% last time I looked.
- amelius 9y ago
  > I just realized why they've integrated Uber into Google Maps, so when they do that with Waymotaxi, no one can scream "anti-competitive move! No, they integrated it so that Maps becomes the go-to point for users when they need a ride. That way, Google can snatch those users away when Waymo becomes available. The internet nowadays is all about being the "gatekeeper", and Google just wants to stay in that role.
  - nindalf 9y ago
    Google will do the smart thing too. When Waymotaxi becomes available, they won't remove Uber as an option because that might be anti-competitive. But more relevantly, they wouldn't need to. Back of the envelope calculations say that a self driving cab would be 1/3rd of the cost. Show both in Google maps and let the people decide.
    - bildung 9y ago
      > Back of the envelope calculations say that a self driving cab would be 1/3rd of the cost. I can hardly imagine taking the human drivers out of the equation will be that profitable. Right now, those drivers also do the labor intensive part of maintaining the fleet (gas/power, cleaning, repairs etc.). That part will stay with uber, lyft, google etc.
      - lukasm 9y ago
        When car companies will become taxis, repairs will stop being profit centres, so the incentive will be to make more durable cars. Also electric cars will become more convenient with AI Taxi. Uber drivers don't use their cars 24/7. AI Taxi can deliver good between companies in the night. There is so much room for improvement. Right now it won't be 1/3 of the cost, but in the future AI Taxi will cost as much as public transport.
        vonmoltke 9y ago
        > When car companies will become taxis, repairs will stop being profit centres, so the incentive will be to make more durable cars. I think manufacturing cost is a much stronger driver of shitty reliability than repairs being a profit center. After all, in the US dealer system the manufacturer isn't getting the profits, the dealer is. > Uber drivers don't use their cars 24/7. AI Taxi can deliver good between companies in the night. Keeping complex systems like that running constantly is difficult and expensive. It also wears said systems out faster and increases capital costs.
- j_s 9y ago
  > they have the users As you pointed out, this is a very fickle (price sensitive) group. Anecdata-ly, I can point to many who prioritize Lyft based entirely on personal price comparison history.

gumby 9y ago

I’ve long thought Uber’s plan was acquisition: google up cash to GBF (Get Big Fast) with unassailable network effect (brand, user data, city usage data etc) and then sell off. Just as GM got Cruise (for a song) then a GM would buy uber. That seemed, for the reasons you gave, to be a long shot. Sure the car mfrs don’t have services in their dna, but it won’t cost THAT much to get there. Certainly not the $40-odd billion valuation Uber bears. I also have long believed there will only be 4-5 global car brands once the vehicles drive themselves (fleet production in a monopsony environment destroys the value of branding). I hadn’t guessed that GM might even have been in the runnng.

threeseed 9y ago
> there will only be 4-5 global car brands We heard the same thing about mechanical watches when smartwatches came out. But actually what happened was the opposite. People flocked back to mechanical, vintage watches and the watch industry is booming right now. I suspect the same thing will happen with cars. There will be even more car brands than we have today with old classics coming back e.g. Saab but all built off cheaper, commodity electric drive trains and far more differentiated. So you will have AI cars taking over family movers, taxis, buses etc and old, classic cars being modernised and built for drivers.
- croon 9y ago
  Cars right now are both a practical good and a luxury item (where branding comes in). Clocks were the same, until everyone got a phone in their pocket at which point they were reduced to just a luxury item. I'm sure there will always be car collectors, but buying a car as a luxury item when there's no longer a practical need to own one, is far from comparable to buying a watch.
  - vonmoltke 9y ago
    I have said it before, and will say it again: I do not understand why the assumption is that fully self-driving cars will eliminate individual car ownership. What are the practical reasons to own one now, and why will they be rendered irrelevant by AI drivers?

rcMgD2BwE72F 9y ago

For now. Imagine that many people give up their personally-owed cars and rely on subscriptions in the next few years. Sales of cars would drop fast for manufacturers who don't have a on-demand service network with a sufficient critical mass. Don't forget that giants went close to bankruptcy around 2008 with only a few % of global sales decrease. Their market cap could drop low enough for Uber/Google/Apple (and their investors) to acquire them on the cheap.

Retric 9y ago
Uber has massively subsidized users for years, but they don't have the cash to keep doing this for very long or buy a fleet of self driving cars. When self driving cars do take off you can expect a spike of sales as people really want that feature. So, Uber would need to survive ~15 years before any major car companies feel the squeeze and I doubt they can make another 5.
- caresource_ta 9y ago
  Subsidizing users is one side of the coin. The other side is that Uber has been living beyond their means and they do not have the cash to keep doing this.
- encoderer 9y ago
  Uber would only need to raise fares 10% and not increase driver payouts to be in the black. The dire predictions don’t seem connected to the balance sheet I’ve looked at. Everybody wags their tongue at uber quarterly “loss” but they pay no attention to the more important measure of free cash flow
  - Retric 9y ago
    Break even does not enable them to pay for massive investments. A 20% increase would cost them significant ridership, but is more or less required to have any significant profit.
    - 9y ago