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> anyone can purchase a self-driving car with financing. To assert this as obvious strikes me as a bit ridiculous. Let's think through one facet of what happe

> anyone can purchase a self-driving car with financing. To assert this as obvious strikes me as a bit ridiculous. Let's think through one facet of what happens once services like Uber, Car2Go, Lyft, etc. have self-driving cars. Those living in urban areas would then have a very viable option to avoid ownership, maintenance, storage, parking, etc. for what's commonly cited as the second most costly (and massively depreciating) asset they own after a home. It would allow a practical shift for many people from car ownership to car sharing. The cultural transition won't happen overnight, especially in the US where car ownership is practically a rite of passage. Yet I suspect that the economics will eventually be so favorable that once the business and technology pieces are in place, the transition will happen for a large percentage of the population no matter what. In this light, Uber is one of several companies positioned for a massive transition of transportation from a product-oriented business to a service-oriented one. We'll see how it all plays out.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
You misunderstand me. Anyone, not just consumers, but businesses as well, could buy self-driving vehicles. Uber is simply an app with supply/demand machine learning, an army of drivers who are becoming more irate by how they're being treated, and community managers. What would it cost to reproduce Uber's app and backend? $500K? $1 million? What happens if cities simply say, "You're out Uber" and buy their own self-driving cars for their citizens? Is Uber going to build their own roads?
- bostonpete 12y ago
  I don't think cities are going to be buying self-driving cars like this. What happens when citizens want to leave the city? Or the state? Or country? It makes more sense for a corporation to provide this service. By and large, people seem to love Uber. If they fall out of favor, I think it would be more natural for competitors to put pressure on them to improve (or supplant them), not city governments.
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    > What happens when citizens want to leave the city? Or the state? Or country? They use the public transit available to them where they move to? Why would self-driving vehicles not be like the postal service, a business but also an essential service? Just because I left Chicago doesn't mean I get to take the Metra and the CTA with me.
- saidajigumi 12y ago
  Ah, understood. Fair point and one which I also touched on in mentioning other competitors for this space. I think this is especially true for Car2Go, which isn't conventionally seen as an Uber competitor, but which is perhaps better positioned to take advantage of self-driving vehicles because they already maintain fleets of custom vehicles and all that goes with that. I could definitely see some urban transit systems deciding to incorporate self-driving vehicles of varying capacities. That's an interesting angle. So I well agree that Uber's technology, for which there are already multiple equivalents, isn't important. The contest will be entirely about business models and execution. IMO, that can be a lot harder to predict, at least without considerably more depth than I currently have on the players in this market.

toomuchtodo 12y ago

You misunderstand me. Anyone, not just consumers, but businesses as well, could buy self-driving vehicles. Uber is simply an app with supply/demand machine learning, an army of drivers who are becoming more irate by how they're being treated, and community managers. What would it cost to reproduce Uber's app and backend? $500K? $1 million? What happens if cities simply say, "You're out Uber" and buy their own self-driving cars for their citizens? Is Uber going to build their own roads?

bostonpete 12y ago
I don't think cities are going to be buying self-driving cars like this. What happens when citizens want to leave the city? Or the state? Or country? It makes more sense for a corporation to provide this service. By and large, people seem to love Uber. If they fall out of favor, I think it would be more natural for competitors to put pressure on them to improve (or supplant them), not city governments.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  > What happens when citizens want to leave the city? Or the state? Or country? They use the public transit available to them where they move to? Why would self-driving vehicles not be like the postal service, a business but also an essential service? Just because I left Chicago doesn't mean I get to take the Metra and the CTA with me.
saidajigumi 12y ago
Ah, understood. Fair point and one which I also touched on in mentioning other competitors for this space. I think this is especially true for Car2Go, which isn't conventionally seen as an Uber competitor, but which is perhaps better positioned to take advantage of self-driving vehicles because they already maintain fleets of custom vehicles and all that goes with that. I could definitely see some urban transit systems deciding to incorporate self-driving vehicles of varying capacities. That's an interesting angle. So I well agree that Uber's technology, for which there are already multiple equivalents, isn't important. The contest will be entirely about business models and execution. IMO, that can be a lot harder to predict, at least without considerably more depth than I currently have on the players in this market.