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How many cars does Uber own? I thought they offloaded all of that pesky "ownership" stuff to their custome.. I mean drivers / coworkers / employees / collaborat

How many cars does Uber own? I thought they offloaded all of that pesky "ownership" stuff to their custome.. I mean drivers / coworkers / employees / collaborating business owners / freelancers.

manquer 3y ago
The point being they could eliminate the human drivers and take the whole revenue instead of sharing it. From ridesharing company PoV right now they are only taking 30%-50% of the revenue, and they have gaps in meeting demand due to resourcing challenges. The business model is pretty solid if self driving taxis work even if its only in urban and suburbs
- kklisura 3y ago
  > The point being they could eliminate the human drivers and take the whole revenue instead of sharing it. Why would then Tesla even sell such cars if they can just compete and outcompete Uber?
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Musk has already stated that Tesla will start a ride sharing service that FSD Tesla owners can participate in. It will also supposedly be exclusive (not allowed to do ride sharing for other services using FSD). Google self driving car division has an agreement with Uber now.
- kibwen 3y ago
  Except that currently all the drivers also manage the inventory of physical cars, and all maintenance, and all legal liability. The parent's question is a good one. Owning and operating a fleet of cars is the core competency of a rental agency, not a ride-hailing app.
  - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
    > and all legal liability. People really do not understand that the Companies like Uber, Airbnb and Deliveroo make a huge amount of money from offloading liability - it's suddenly not Deliveroo's fault that the guy delivering your pizza in London does this on illegal, unroadworthy e-bikewith no insurance, and in case of a crash he is liable. Airbnb routinely rents out apartments in blocks that have this forbidden in the leave / rental agreement. If the human is gone, then liability offloading is impossible. You have noone to blame. That liability off-load is worth more to deliveroo than is the pittance they pay him.
    - manquer 3y ago
      Self-driving won't make a difference to this structure though ? The pitch Tesla (if you believe them) keeps making is we could rent out our cars when we don't use it to the rental networks. We still own the car ( and the liability ) and unlock RoI.
  - manquer 3y ago
    Just a ride sharing app cannot reach the scale and revenue to justify the investments they have attracted. It is not realistic to raise $25+ Billion[1] just to be a pure SaaS startup. Both Uber and Lyft[2] run rental businesses already, the model works where you can rent a car on a weekly basis just to drive on their apps, they cover maintenance and other services. Uber will have to find a way to maintain their growth, and Lyft probably will be acquired by a rental network. The result is the same vertical integration. [1] Uber's equity investment so far. SaaS startups can be valued lot more even $100s of billions, but pure tech companies do not raise that kind of cash. Stripe for example despite its delayed IPOs and ESOP issues has only raised $8B. [2] They own some of the inventory and rest are from partners I believe.
tyre 3y ago
I don’t know about Uber but Lyft has a car rental service. Drivers can rent cars from Lyft to drive with Lyft. If the infrastructure is already there, going from “driver turns on an app to accept/reject a ride” to “we accept that automatically” is quite simple.
- Gunnerhead 3y ago
  I don’t believe Lyft owns the cars, they just partner with the traditional car rental agencies. Uber also has a car rental service.

How many cars does Uber own? I thought they offloaded all of that pesky "ownership" stuff to their custome.. I mean drivers / coworkers / employees / collaborating business owners / freelancers.

manquer 3y ago

The point being they could eliminate the human drivers and take the whole revenue instead of sharing it. From ridesharing company PoV right now they are only taking 30%-50% of the revenue, and they have gaps in meeting demand due to resourcing challenges. The business model is pretty solid if self driving taxis work even if its only in urban and suburbs

kklisura 3y ago
> The point being they could eliminate the human drivers and take the whole revenue instead of sharing it. Why would then Tesla even sell such cars if they can just compete and outcompete Uber?
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Musk has already stated that Tesla will start a ride sharing service that FSD Tesla owners can participate in. It will also supposedly be exclusive (not allowed to do ride sharing for other services using FSD). Google self driving car division has an agreement with Uber now.
kibwen 3y ago
Except that currently all the drivers also manage the inventory of physical cars, and all maintenance, and all legal liability. The parent's question is a good one. Owning and operating a fleet of cars is the core competency of a rental agency, not a ride-hailing app.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  > and all legal liability. People really do not understand that the Companies like Uber, Airbnb and Deliveroo make a huge amount of money from offloading liability - it's suddenly not Deliveroo's fault that the guy delivering your pizza in London does this on illegal, unroadworthy e-bikewith no insurance, and in case of a crash he is liable. Airbnb routinely rents out apartments in blocks that have this forbidden in the leave / rental agreement. If the human is gone, then liability offloading is impossible. You have noone to blame. That liability off-load is worth more to deliveroo than is the pittance they pay him.
  - manquer 3y ago
    Self-driving won't make a difference to this structure though ? The pitch Tesla (if you believe them) keeps making is we could rent out our cars when we don't use it to the rental networks. We still own the car ( and the liability ) and unlock RoI.
- manquer 3y ago
  Just a ride sharing app cannot reach the scale and revenue to justify the investments they have attracted. It is not realistic to raise $25+ Billion[1] just to be a pure SaaS startup. Both Uber and Lyft[2] run rental businesses already, the model works where you can rent a car on a weekly basis just to drive on their apps, they cover maintenance and other services. Uber will have to find a way to maintain their growth, and Lyft probably will be acquired by a rental network. The result is the same vertical integration. [1] Uber's equity investment so far. SaaS startups can be valued lot more even $100s of billions, but pure tech companies do not raise that kind of cash. Stripe for example despite its delayed IPOs and ESOP issues has only raised $8B. [2] They own some of the inventory and rest are from partners I believe.

tyre 3y ago

I don’t know about Uber but Lyft has a car rental service. Drivers can rent cars from Lyft to drive with Lyft. If the infrastructure is already there, going from “driver turns on an app to accept/reject a ride” to “we accept that automatically” is quite simple.

Gunnerhead 3y ago
I don’t believe Lyft owns the cars, they just partner with the traditional car rental agencies. Uber also has a car rental service.