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Google Is Developing Its Own Uber Competitor

• geoffwoo 12y ago
  Google could cut Uber down hard by pulling Google Maps API access. Ballsiest play Google has ever done if they execute on this. Love it.
  • k-mcgrady 12y ago
    >> "Google could cut Uber down hard by pulling Google Maps API access." Why would they do that to a company they are invested in? >> "if they execute on this." There's the key. They are going to face the same regulatory problems as Uber. Worse if they go the self-driving car route as that going to require huge overalls to legislation worldwide.
    • gaius 12y ago
      I think we should differentiate between a self-driving car (with a full set of controls) and a driverless car. The former is 100x more likely to happen than the latter. You might see driverless buses that go on predefined routes.
    • nbm326 12y ago
      I was thinking about this. They don't necessarily have to face the same problems as Uber because they don't have to compete with taxi companies. Uber's model completely relies on direct competition with legacy taxi companies. Google could simply offer their self driving cars to said taxi companies and they'll be able to cut their personnel by 95% over night. You can cut the costs of operating a taxi service while still operating within the confines of the current system. Not sure the taxi companies would get in bed with Google, or cut rates accordingly, I'm just suggesting that driverless cars have certain advantages. That said, theres a whole other can of worms of trying to pass regulation allowing pilotless cars, which I'd guess will be just as difficult as duking it out with TLC's around the country.
    • pavedwalden 12y ago
      Hasn't Uber already done a lot of the bush clearing? Sure, there's plenty more to get hashed out, but it might be nice to draft behind Uber, only entering markets once the legal situation stabilizes. I've always been fond of the expression "The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese"
  • gaius 12y ago
    Killer quote: which gives Google a fire hose of data about transportation patterns within cities It seems that their investment in Uber was about getting someone to gather the data for them, perhaps it was cheaper than doing it themselves!
    • deeviant 12y ago
      I don't think the quote was saying that Uber is providing said fire hose of data, but rather that Google Maps gives Google a fire hose of traffic data which in turn Uber utilizes to create efficient routing.
  • 1ris 12y ago
    OSM is a way better anyway. This would improve uber.
    • potatolicious 12y ago
      Not that I don't love OSM - I use it myself for some side projects - but is it really better? Here in NYC I've found several streets mislabeled as one-way in the wrong direction, and not too long ago at that. If these major errors can be found by some guy just fooling around, in one of the biggest cities in the world, how useful is OSM for navigation?
      • Aloisius 12y ago
        Google Maps tried to route me down a staircase in San Francisco for several months, told me I could turn left on a major street that you have never been able to turn left on and decided my address was not only in the wrong part of town, but in a completely different zip code at one point because someone had created a "business" at my address and set it to be in a completely different place which made it pretty much impossible to order from any service dependent on them like grubhub or eat24hours. No one has perfect data. At least when I update OSM, it updates relatively quickly as opposed to Google Maps which took months to get updated after reporting the errors.
    • toomuchtodo 12y ago
      Unfortunately, this isn't the case. Google puts an incredible amount of effort into their GIS/mapping division, and OSM would be hard pressed to compete with those resources.
  • bsdpython 12y ago
    An anti-trust lawsuit would be guaranteed
  • jbigelow76 12y ago
    Bing map data would work just as well. Google might have more coverage out in the sticks but for where Uber operates the coverage density and accuracy difference would be somewhere between negligible to non-existent.
  • paulhauggis 12y ago
    so when any other company does something like this, we cry anti-trust. But when Google does it, it's good business? I'm not sure where all of this Google love comes from on HN (besides all of the engineers that work there). Google is just as evil as any large corporation. They may surgar-coat everything with a "do no evil" mantra, but it's just good PR. When you peel back these layers, it's business as usual.
    • FeeTinesAMady 12y ago
      It might be more that a lot of people consider Uber to be a despicable company, and Google is the lesser of those evils in this case.
    • smtddr 12y ago
      >> Google is just as evil as any large corporation. Let's not exaggerate. Google might not be perfect; nobody is, but their actions are great magnitudes in distance from the evil some other companies have done. I'd rather work for Google than any of the companies below: - http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/10/1141724/-Walmart-fuels-inequality-epidemic-taking-advantage-of-our-safety-net http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/10/1141724/-Walmart-fu... - http://www.alternet.org/story/52526/rural_communities_exploited_by_nestle_for_your_bottled_water http://www.alternet.org/story/52526/rural_communities_exploi... - http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/08/02/3466915/chiquita-colombia-ruling/ http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/08/02/3466915/chiquita-c... - http://philosophia.uncg.edu/phi361-metivier/module-2-why-does-business-need-ethics/case-the-ford-pinto/ http://philosophia.uncg.edu/phi361-metivier/module-2-why-doe... - https://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/private-prisons https://www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/private-prisons - ...just about any oil company. - ...The diamond industry. - ...and I'm highly suspicious of what goes on in insurance & credit card companies.
      • paulhauggis 12y ago
        Google's entire business is based on completely taking every single one of our actions, thoughts, connections, and interests and selling it out to advertisers. Most Android phones push you to put everything into the cloud. Do you know why? Oh yeah, that's right, so they can sell your data to advertisers. Recently, they stopped putting organic search terms in referral traffic from the Google search engine to a website, effectively making it impossible to use any other applications except Google Adsense. Great company, right? They have had a monopoly as bad and far reaching as Microsoft..yet I rarely hear the hatred that I used to hear about Microsoft in the late 90s. It seems like all you need to do is support the developer community by giving out lots of free software/open source and the tech community will forgive you for pretty much anything (employing you at $100,000+/year also helps in this forgiveness).
  • DigitalSea 12y ago
    Considering Google have invested a fair bit of cash into Uber which might be a tax write-off for Google, I would probably say we are going to see Google try and buy Uber out instead. Cutting off their maps access would probably open up a can of worms for Google as Uber would undoubtedly take legal action (and they have the funds to really go for it), there could be a little bit of conflict of interest happening here as Google have access to inner workings of Uber's business model and the business itself. But having said that, there is probably nothing stopping Google from creating a driverless car Uber rival, it would fall outside of the realm of being a true direct competitor as there are no drivers. But are driverless cars at a point where they can be rolled out on a larger scale? Seems there is a lot of regulation and process to abide by before that starts to happen, maybe a controlled rollout? I am surprised Google haven't tried launching their own airline yet, it would probably be undeniably easier than a ridesharing network of driverless cars.
    • beamatronic 12y ago
      They are building their own private terminal at San Jose airport [1]. 1. http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_23041939/san-jose-city-council-approves-deal-airports-elite http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_23041939/san-jose-city-council...
      • kunaalarya 12y ago
        for their private jets "Signature's project includes seven hangars for corporate jets, with five of those hangars to be used by Blue City Holdings, its primary tenant. That company will manage aircraft for Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, whose private jets are now parked at Moffett Field, where their lease is up next year."
    • mef 12y ago
      Vastly less upside on running your own airline than transforming ground transportation.
  • terrabakky 12y ago
    I can't see it happening. Only recently they got partially integrated with maps.google.com in some cities. You're right though, it would absolutely destroy the business, requiring them to redevelop their apps. Would be a huge service disruption.
• don_draper 12y ago
  The very definition of being a victim of their own success
• closetnerd 12y ago
  Good god, that'd we way too much power in the hands of a single company. They're awfully close to Googlizing the world. Which I think is theoretically the closest civilization could get to utopia. But I'm not one for utopia.
• Vermeulen 12y ago
  Google seems unable to have a partner without eventually entering their market and becoming enemies. Apple before Android, Twitter before Google+ - I guess it's inevitable with how many different industries Google tries to tackle. I think if this service is entirely defined by autonomous vehicles it's really a complete different service than Uber. No more driver ratings or passenger ratings, all the same car type, and it's own vast legal challenges
  • VikingCoder 12y ago
    "all the same car type" I can't imagine why you think this. I'm picturing that you can order the Google autonomous car that has a 42" TV screen, a hot tub, and a magnum of champagne. Or the stretch limo. Or a flatbed truck. Maybe one without a passenger compartment. Picture "PODS." Portable On-Demand Storage. Except the thing just drives to your house. Picture ordering "Lightning McQueen" for your kid's birthday party. He shows up, and someone is doing the "Talk With Crush" thing, remotely animating Lightning's eyes, etc. Picture ordering "Herbie The Love Bug" to drive your kid and his date to prom. Or ordering the DeLorean from Back to the Future. Or the A-Team van. Or KITT. Or a motor-home / RV. Or a giant truck filled with Arcade Machines. Again, for corporate parties. Or a portable kitchen. Stocked with ingredients you pick. Great for outdoor parties at parks, tail-gating, etc. Or a micro-brew / mini-bar. Whatever bottles you open, you pay for. Stocked blender, ice, brews on tap, etc. Cripes, if you want to test-drive a car, having one that can autonomously show up at your work, or home... Not that you'd necessarily buy an autonomous one, but the idea of bringing the dealership to you? Or ordering a snow-plow. No driver. You click a button, pay $10, and your driveway gets plowed. Or getting a Student Driver car. It sits there watching your kid learn to drive, and saves their ass if they do anything dumb. Gives them a report card. Lets you know how they're doing. Or ordering a Sleeper car. Shows up at my house at 9 pm, and drives me to Chicago by 8 am. I'd order one every weekend.
    • bobbles 12y ago
      I'd love a service where I can rent some storage unit out in the middle of the country somewher (I live in Australia..) for cheap cheap prices, then just call a car/van to my house with an app, load it up with gear, and have it delivered out to my storage unit. Seems like a great way to handle people in my situation where I can only afford a small place but don't necessarily want to get rid of all my stuff just because my current location doesnt work for it
• ajju 12y ago
  Google is the only company with a potential edge over Uber right now. The point in time at which self-driving cars are usable by the the public is the only visible inflection point where Uber's hegemony is truly threatened. (edit) The article suggest self driving cars, and by extension Google's ridesharing service won't be ready for 2-5 more years.
  • bsdpython 12y ago
    The article states 2-5 years for Google's driverless cars
    • Spooky23 12y ago
      Maybe from a technology point of view. The problem with driverless cars isn't the car, it's the insurance. Google would need to become a large insurance company. Doing business in NYC would kill them.
      • kalleboo 12y ago
        They're definitely building relationships in that direction... http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/01/08/google-wants-to-sell-you-auto-insurance/ http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/01/08/google-wants-to-sell-...
  • aetherson 12y ago
    Huh? No. Anyone with relatively deep pockets could easily disrupt Uber right now. Uber's technology is pretty simple and straightforward, and not meaningfully patent-protected. You can do the same tech given six months or so and a decent engineering team. And Uber's customer-base is price sensitive. You can easily get into this market if you're willing to price compete with Uber. Now, Uber is very willing to price-compete ferociously. It will absolutely drive you both deep into unprofitability. And Uber has quite a war-chest, and it can push around its smaller competitors this way. But as rich as Uber is, there are plenty of companies that are richer. Way richer. Orders of magnitude richer. I think that so far, the really big boys have said, "Why do we want to get into a price war with Uber? They'll fight until the last breath, I don't see why we should launch a deeply unprofitable ride-sharing service." Amazon might do it eventually. They have expertise in operating at high scale, low-margin, and they're big enough to destroy Uber. They also might want to use a ride-sharing service to deliver goods. I think that right now, they've mostly said, "We're unconvinced that there's a real logistics business here, and so we aren't going to get involved." Google might do it for the data. I can't see Apple bothering -- it's pretty far outside of their corporate comfort zone. But if, I don't know, Tim Cook gets hit by a bus and their new CEO wants to make major changes, they absolutely COULD do it. Microsoft could maybe do it in an attempt to create a compelling entry-point to their ecosystem, but it's not very Microsofty. I don't see that any non-computer companies currently have a reason to try it.
• k-mcgrady 12y ago
  If Google competes directly with a company they are invested in via GV they're going to really damage the reputation of GV. Why would you accept investment from them if they're going to get access to your private info and then turn around and screw you.
  • MediaSquirrel 12y ago
    If Google wins at ridesharing, it will be worth billions more than anything GV itself could produce.
    • georgemcbay 12y ago
      trillions, probably, because anything that eats up uber with autonomous driving likely soon eats up UPS, FedEx, all the large trucking companies that move goods, etc, etc.
  • wmeredith 12y ago
    They also did this shit with Apple, iOS, and Android; aslo with Twitter and G+. Not the investment bit, but the insider on the board thing.
  • lpolovets 12y ago
    I don't have insider knowledge, but I believe Google claims that there's a wall between Google and GV, and they act completely independently. This makes sense to me -- otherwise, no one would pitch ideas to GV that Google might one day implement (i.e. basically all ideas that have a software angle). To me, if Google uses insider knowledge to copy Uber, then that would be huge mistake and credibility killer; if they want to build up their own competitor from scratch without any insider knowledge, then that's their business.
    • spoondan 12y ago
      I don't think Google Ventures's role is particularly relevant. Companies should be aware of what data they are providing Google when making use of Google services. Google doesn't need to have insider information to have a wealth of information about Uber trips: the number of trips, when they most frequently occur, duration and miles covered, what cities are most popular, what are the popular starting and ending points. All of these data can be mined from just watching Uber's use of the Google Maps API. It may not be contractually permitted, but the data are there for Google to use. Through a paranoid lens, Google APIs are corporate espionage you sign up for. Since Google is a valuable and entrenched service provider, they can get away with it. What I could see companies doing in return is attempting to obscure their API usage by fabricating requests. For example, Uber could break the correspondence between API requests and trips by sending requests that look authentic but don't correspond to any actual trips. This kind of corporate information warfare sounds like something out of a William Gibson novel, but it certainly feels present and real when you look at Google's relationships.
• kumarski 12y ago
  hahahahaha. Good luck google. Anyone game to take longbets on Google building a successful product internally and scaling it with their traditional approach? I'm always doubtful.
• inmyunix 12y ago
  this is the least surprising news of the decade.
  • dragonwriter 12y ago
    Its at least mildly surprising -- lots of people assumed Google would try to get in this market, sure, but most of the speculation, given Google's investment in Uber, has focused around Google acquiring Uber, not competing with them.
• hosay123 12y ago
  My inner paranoid finds this interesting from the perspective of Google entering yet another domain where they have high accuracy data on the present/future whereabouts and private concerns of a large number of people.. add it to the hundred other properties they maintain that appear to have no direct business value other than capturing masses of sensitive data that was previously nicely decentralized and private. Can't book a flight (ITA), order a taxi (this), book a hotel or chat with a friend (Gmail), or pay for dinner (Wallet) without generating an activity log with a single company. Even if (and perhaps even probably) Google weren't doing this intentionally, they've already demonstrated through failing to encrypt their inter-DC connections how they're becoming a massive single point of failure (remember Snowden showed us the NSA were tapping Google's internal network already). Whether the end result is an intelligence service tap, or some legislative measure affecting the company done in the open, I'll simply never be comfortable with one company concentrating so much personal data affecting so many people.
  • thrownaway2424 12y ago
    Well you're in luck on that last point, because nobody has ever paid for their meal with Google Wallet.
    • Kalium 12y ago
      I've bought food with Wallet before. And made a meal of it. So, I suppose I have.
      • jsprogrammer 12y ago
        Better be on the look out. NSA might blackbag you.
        • JetSpiegel 12y ago
          Eating meat doesn't warrant that.
          • 12y ago
• rottyguy 12y ago
  Am I the only one thinking a targeted convergence with driverless cars down the road (no pun intended)? Once you remove the largest cost factor (the human), does pricing reduce to $.56/mi (or whatever the Standard Mileage Rate, or derivative thereof, is at the time). Added with Express to overload deliveries to maximize utility (maybe offer riders a discount if they can make an express stop along the way...)
  • nilkn 12y ago
    On-demand driverless transportation from any A to any B at $.56/mile would be truly revolutionary. I wonder how many years off we are from this.
    • toomuchtodo 12y ago
      Electric vehicles cost about 1-3 cents/mile for the electricity. They also require so little service, I would assume the cost would be closer to 10-20 cents/mile for a self-driving electric vehicle.
      • rottyguy 12y ago
        I was baselining from here: http://www.irs.gov/2014-Standard-Mileage-Rates-for-Business,-Medical-and-Moving-Announced http://www.irs.gov/2014-Standard-Mileage-Rates-for-Business,... but, sure, it would most likely be less.
        • toomuchtodo 12y ago
          My mistake!
        • ajju 12y ago
          That $0.56 number includes depreciation. There are other costs like insurance which are non-trivial. Initially at least, it's not going to be much less.
          • 12y ago
• jbigelow76 12y ago
  Will I have to have a Google+ account to ride?
• fidotron 12y ago
  Uber have struck me before as a bigger potential headache for Google than even Facebook were/are, and I suspect this is all an effort to acquire them and drive the price down. There is something about the automated dispatch at giant scale business which overlaps with the search as interface idea. "Get me to [wherever]" is a natural extension of what you might do after searching. Furthermore, the act of finding a driver is itself a search. Feed the driver information back into search and it gets entertaining, with queries like "What are the restaurants right now with 80% rating, tables available and will cost me less than $20 to get to?" That's a query you can only answer with the driver and price data. As such Uber have the hard bit and can grow the rest, Google face a move into a physical world full of people, which is pretty much their Achilles heel.
  • boomzilla 12y ago
    This is very spot on. Savvy advertisers are already rubbing their hands, waiting for the day when they can get access to Uber data. Imagine if one can send a message/notification to the people heading towards certain restaurants in Uber cars, asking "How about visiting my place instead, first drink and dessert is on the house :)"
    • SyneRyder 12y ago
      Uber is already doing/testing this in a better way. They had free Uber week in Perth not long ago, with discounts & freebies offered at a number of restaurants if you made them your final Uber destination. I don't usually go out on a whim to a restaurant when the taxi is $40 each way, but when the travel cost is dramatically subsidized by the venue or zero...
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  • billsimpson 12y ago
    Facebook was viewed as a threat to Google for two primary reasons: - Facebook had access to tremendous amounts of personal information, and it was assumed they could leverage this data to improve ads and search and beat Google at their own game. - Everyone sat at their desktop computer staring at Facebook for hours on end, making it valuable ad real estate. Again, this cut into Google's core business. So is Uber a comparable headache for Google? I don't see Uber as being a threat to their core business (their business is ads, not search; search just happens to be their best channel for ad delivery). Arguably it provides valuable information to improve their ad targeting, but it seems like a huge investment for relatively little payout in that regard. My guess is that it's a natural extension of their work on self-driving cars. People have identified how Uber would be natural fit for self-driving cars. But I doubt Google wants to be reliant on a third-party company with reputation problems to introduce these cars to the world. That would introduce too many variables. So they're cutting out the middle man and doing it themselves, at least at first. So how does this impact advertising? A nation-wide or global fleet of automated, networked cars would obviously produce a glut of valuable information (arguably their Uber-clone would too, but an automated solution could be taken to another scale). But really, I think the self-driving car is a disruptive enough technology that it could be completely orthogonal to their core business and still worth pursuing. On a side note, can we agree yet that Facebook is quickly fading into irrelevance? It seems to have two important properties left (neither of which they developed): WhatsApp and Instagram. WhatsApp gives Facebook as much value as AIM gave AOL in its later years (which is to say, not enough to justify the company's size and market capitalization). Instagram took Facebook's best use case (looking at your friends' photos) and stripped away everything that made the experience suck: ads and Farmville (in other words, Facebook's business model). I like what they're doing with React though.
• obilgic 12y ago
  Google maps has already started showing Uber price estimates when you enter a route
  • JeremyBanks 12y ago
    Note that it only does this if you already have the Uber app installed; it isn't promoting Uber to non-users.
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• Animats 12y ago
  Google General Services. Whatever you want done, whenever you want it done, Google will find someone to do it. "We also walk dogs."
• msoad 12y ago
  Google proved that it can do logistic-heavy business with it's Google Express. I'm sure if they do something like Uber, it would be as good as Google Express.
• haberman 12y ago
  > David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer and senior vice president of corporate development, joined the Uber board of directors in 2013, and has served on it ever since. Not super related to this story, but I always have to wonder: why do powerful people join boards? What's in it for them? It seems like an awful lot of work, responsibility, and potential for conflict of interest. What do board members get out of it?
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  • klochner 12y ago
    Influence, and they also get paid - as much as $500k/year for public corporations, and equity at startups.
  • ajju 12y ago
    in this case, David Drummond was presumably the steward of Google's 250M+ investment. The reason investors join the board is so they can help the company succeed and make sure their interests are being protected
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  • mikeyouse 12y ago
    If Drummond got 0.1% Equity as a Director, it would've been worth $3.4M the day he joined and if he wasn't diluted, it would be worth $40M today. (I realize that both of those assumptions are unlikely, but it's still interesting as an example)
    • ajju 12y ago
      It's pretty unlikely that Drummond got any Uber equity. He isn't an independent director, he's representing Google as an investor on Uber's board.
      • 12y ago
• bcantrill 12y ago
  This is not at all a surprise, and I fully expect Amazon to also ultimately enter this space. (I have no insider knowledge of either company.) It's amazing to me how many people think that Uber is somehow building a deep moat when these other companies (Google, Amazon, etc.) have a much deeper connection with their customers -- to say nothing of the data that have collected. Given perfect rider competition and (especially) perfect driver competition, how does the advantage not lie with the established company and brand? Given Uber's nose-bleed valuation, I suspect that they may become the Webvan-esque poster child of this bubble: visionary, but ultimately a ludicrous valuation and absurd misallocation of capital that was obvious to all only in retrospect.
  • ForHackernews 12y ago
    Forget Google, Lyft and Sidecar are basically already the same thing as Uber. Plus local cab companies are developing their own apps. The barrier to entry in ride-dispatching is absurdly low. I wish somebody (city government? craigslist?) would just make a free clearing-house for it.
  • ignoramous 12y ago
    Amazon already is building an on-demand grocery service, and Jeff Bezos has long made it clear that he wants all the inventory at Amazon Warehouses to be delivered within hours to the customer. It wouldn't be stretch to think that Amazon would enter the on-demand logistics market (not just Taxi) at some point in time, cause it has got most pieces of the puzzle sorted. Same goes for Google, as it tries to take on e-commerce market with its own offerings.
• comrade1 12y ago
  On the one hand, this is great. Competition and I couldn't wish Google's infinite pockets on a more terrible group of people. On the other hand, Google has only been successful with search and advertising and are known for terrible customer service. I mean, who are you going to call when your driver rapes you? You'll never be able to talk to a human.
  • notatoad 12y ago
    You call the police if somebody rapes you. that isn't a customer service problem.
    • comrade1 12y ago
      Are you a robot?
      • oldmanjay 12y ago
        What would a non-robot such as yourself hope to accomplish by calling the company that hires a rapist? Seems like the police would be a much more effective option for walking meat.
      • pyrocat 12y ago
        Relevant: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/11/19 http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/11/19
  • kryptiskt 12y ago
    > I mean, who are you going to call when your driver rapes you? You'll never be able to talk to a human. If the self-driving car rapes you, you are probably a character in a scifi-horror movie.
  • dragonwriter 12y ago
    > I mean, who are you going to call when your driver rapes you? I would presume, whether the driver was a personal acquaintance, a traditional taxi driver, an Uber/Lyft driver, or a "Google Rides" driver, the answer to that question would be ... the police and a personal injury attorney, and whatever physical and mental health professionals you thought were appropriate. Of course, since the reports of Google developing a ride hailing service are that it is in conjunction with their autonomous car project, it seems at least plausible that that wouldn't even be physically possible with the Google service.
• relaxatorium 12y ago
  They've well and truly inherited the 90s Microsoft banner of being the tech company that wants to be in every line of business at all times.
  • cpeterso 12y ago
    Wall Street demands infinite growth so the only option is to eventually enter all markets.
    • sumedh 12y ago
      If I am not mistaken the two Google founders have majority of the controlling shares so it would not really matter what wall street demands.
• xixixao 12y ago
  I also don't understand how this is news to anyone. The fact that Google wasn't planning on selling its driverless cars but instead provide a service was discussed months ago, including the fact that the way this service would be purchased via a phone. I am especially doubtful Uber's board wouldn't notice this...
  • xixixao 12y ago
    I don't understand why this remark deserves a downvote, don't you think that this "news" from some internal source on the board simply doesn't add up? Have I wrote something incorrect?
• nakedrobot2 12y ago
  Considering how many people hate Uber, I can't imagine much sympathy being headed in their direction with this news.
• softdev12 12y ago
  I'm glad that the article highlighted how valuable the mapping information is that Google collects. While Uber probably could still run its current operations without Google map data, there is a much smaller probability that they would be able to run a self-driving car service without a highly accurate mapping product. And to build a mapping product is really difficult and expensive. I was surprised when Google starting putting money into mapping the streets because it's a giant effort with major barriers to entry. Nokia bought a company called Navteq that was the clear leader (and basically a monopolist) in driving the streets and collecting the data (they originally supplied data to Google Maps). Navteq supplemented the data with satellite images and other sources, but the roads change often enough that you need people driving on the streets. So, Uber really needs to start thinking about the mapping aspect. Perhaps they can incent their current drivers to start reporting back all the street info as they pick up their passengers. Of course, this would bring up problems if the drivers eventually realize that this data could be used to replace them. It would be interesting to see uber cars with Google StreetView style cameras on their hoods.
  • pyrocat 12y ago
    Drivers have basically zero power here, so I'm guessing Uber would just update the driver side of the app to always report location. No need to add incentives when you can just make it mandatory with minimum pushback (from Uber's PoV). Assuming they don't already.
    • tlrobinson 12y ago
      I assumed the parent comment meant user-provided data, not raw GPS data, since presumably the driver app is always reporting their location (how else would they know which drivers to dispatch?)
      • pyrocat 12y ago
        I'm not sure what user-provided data would even be beneficial? Stuff that's likely already collected encompasses where the user is picked up, dropped off, route taken, time of departure and arrival .etc
• mathattack 12y ago
  I look at this with great anticipation. This will be an enormous reducer of congestion. Driverless cars will remove many of the headaches and hassles of high-density commutes. Imagine being able to pop a beer in the backseat as an automated car drives you home.
  • BobMarz 12y ago
    If working shifts were staggered that would do more to reduce congestion I think.
    • mathattack 12y ago
      I don't see that happening any time soon. More likely to have the automated cars first.
• patronagezero 12y ago
  Your very own government sponsored taxi, less city and state control and now with improved tracking and information awareness! Red or blue pill, they'll choke 'em both down with a few sips of progress.
• tkrupicka 12y ago
  This concept seems like the next logical step for Google's push for mapping/autonomous vehicles. I think the most interesting challenge they'll have going forward is dealing with the same union/labor opposition that Uber has had to deal with. If they can push their driverless technology it would really change the landscape of adoption in cities.
• billsimpson 12y ago
  Many people here are suggesting that Google views Uber as a threat or a competitor. My take is that (a) Google wants to follow through on its self-driving car experiment, (b) public transportation would be a natural fit this product, and (c) Google doesn't want to be reliant on Uber, Lyft, or any other middleman for introducing self-driving car to the word. Initially, it will be a tightly-controlled roll-out that will eliminate as many variables and risk factors as possible. This is their way of getting a head start in that direction, and smoothing the transition of the technology to partners like Uber down the road.
• deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  • bbody 12y ago
    You didn't read the article did you?
• rev_null 12y ago
  Goober?
• andy_ppp 12y ago
  I misread the headline; I actually think that all big companies should attempt to set up their own competitor (with a very small flat team, but resources, users, internal datasets etc.). It would be a big investment but would cement monopoly positions and make it even harder for competitors to gain any sort of traction. A new search engine from Google written with different goals and views of how things should be done would be very interesting and probably gain a good portion of Bing and Yahoo! Users in the process. This applies to a lot of businesses of course. An Uber from Google could also be great too but their once clear idea of what they are is getting fragmented and that'll show in the implementation and UX of Google Cabs.
• xivzgrev 12y ago
  I'm really surprised. G ventures puts ton of money into uber, uber makes a huge pre order for google cars, uber gets put into google maps. And now this. I guess google is like "well we got the hard part, self driving cars. Why not just go after this ourselves?" What is the thing google really wants? Is it more valuable to try to directly monetize all this vehicle traffic, or be the platform every else uses? Google could set up rev share, get access to all the vehicle data (even if they don't use google maps), and set google as default software in the car web experience. It seems greedy, arrogant, and unaligned with their core ways of making money. They're trying to be vertically integrated player which can work if you control all supply but once Google introduces the tech how long is it going to take for a rival to copy, parents aside?
  • jedberg 12y ago
    I suspect it is more like "this part of the company wants to invest" and "this part of the company wants to build" and they are too big and dysfunctional to get both parts to talk to each other to come up with a single strategy. Or they are doing the Microsoft thing and pitting the departments against each other.
  • mcintyre1994 12y ago
    > What is the thing google really wants? I think they want a seriously diversified revenue stream. This gives them data, yes - but it's also directly monetizable. If they see personal transport as a winner takes all market, and they can branch into deliveries, and they do have the best self driving cars then they have a serious advantage in the market and a path to a serious new revenue stream.
    • randomsearch 12y ago
      > I think they want a seriously diversified revenue stream I totally agree with this. If I were working at Google, the main thing that would keep me awake at night is the long-term dependence on a single-source of income, i.e. advertising. And there's a lot of reasons advertising is not a good business to be reliant upon. It's pretty terrifying when you look at their revenue stats. I'm surprised they haven't already achieved this diversity yet, though. Surely at IPO it would have been their number one concern?
• sparkzilla 12y ago
  Meanwhile Google's core search business is looking increasingly vulnerable.
  • scep12 12y ago
    How's that?
    • sparkzilla 12y ago
      The core search is getting less profitable each year. Apps are cutting into the search engine business, and the actual search results are a mess. See my blog post for one example: http://newslines.org/blog/googles-black-hole/ http://newslines.org/blog/googles-black-hole/
• CPLX 12y ago
  Every single time there is a big discussion thread about Uber on HN about half the commentary is about self-driving cars and how various decisions are being made now based on the inevitability of self driving cars. Every time this happens I always wonder why nobody seems to recognize the obvious fact that self driving cars have nothing to do with any of this stuff and won't make economic sense for a company like Uber in any time horizon that it makes business sense to take into account now.
  • ghaff 12y ago
    Autonomous vehicles seem to set off this distortion field that makes otherwise intelligent people ignore everything they know about the state of any number of technologies and the nature of bringing enormously complex systems from research labs into production. We could probably have autonomous vehicles in a limited way under controlled circumstances like interstates in a decade or so. Though if that's optimistic I wouldn't be surprised given that this would be a feature of $100K luxury cars. Robo taxis? My money is on multiple decades which is utterly uninteresting for a VC funded company today.
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
• rottyguy 12y ago
  I'm sure this has been discussed on a different (uber/lyft) thread but being a nyc'er and amazed at the prices of taxi medallions through the years, I'm glad to see this bubble finally popping (prices are still insane mind you)!-- now if we can do the same for the cost of higher education... With google coming into the fray, this can only drop further. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/upshot/new-york-city-taxi-medallion-prices-keep-falling-now-down-about-25-percent.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/upshot/new-york-city-taxi-...
• oimaz 12y ago
  Do partners from google ventures have a board seat in Uber. If so, isn't this a conflict, as Google is privy to all the internal strategy at Uber
• oimaz 12y ago
  Do partners from google ventures have a board seat in Uber. If so, isn't this a conflict, as Google is privy to all the internal strategy at Uber
• kunle 12y ago
  Imagining a shorter path here would be Google buying Lyft and integrating into maps?
• S_A_P 12y ago
  Just think what a cash cow it would be to have google self driving cars run an uber like service...
• jackgavigan 12y ago
  Meanwhile, Uber is partnering with Carnegie Mellon University to build self-driving cars: http://blog.uber.com/carnegie-mellon http://blog.uber.com/carnegie-mellon HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8987441 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8987441
• BobMarz 12y ago
  Too bad Google Drive is taken.
• FrankenPC 12y ago
  Guber. I like it!
• kanamekun 12y ago
  Makes a lot more sense now why they bought Waze. It wasn't just to snatch it out of the hands of Apple and Facebook to protect the Google Maps franchise. It was to play keepaway from Uber, and prepare for the enteral launch of Google (Autonomous) Car.
• akurilin 12y ago
  Either way, I will be happy to be driven around by my digital overlords.
• wkcamp 12y ago
  Out of curiosity, are there any companies in previous history that model the approach Google has done thus far, such as expanding into a vast amount of industries and successfully becoming a contender in those? Anyway, I'm sure Google has enough money to support any failures (this point was made in a previous article about the multi-tool card). But, in the long run, how will Google prevent itself from appearing to look like a monopoly (such as Apple's iPhones in the earlier days)?
• bhaumik 12y ago
  Google replied to the Bloomberg article with a cryptic tweet. "@business We think you'll find Uber and Lyft work quite well. We use them all the time." https://twitter.com/google/status/562392039459807232 https://twitter.com/google/status/562392039459807232
• adamdeloach45 12y ago
  Yes...Very Informative Post I agree ..with your opinion ..
• joering2 12y ago
  Imagine you wake up Monday morning and your Android tells you that it automatically upgraded (beautyness of default settings) the default Google Map app on your phone, you tap it out of curiosity, and it asks you "would you like the cab downstairs in 5 minutes?" Oh well; there goes Uber's 50 billion dollars valuation...
  • kalleboo 12y ago
    Doesn't it already do that? http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OVYK68BPu6k/U2E6Jdhpp2I/AAAAAAAAC9g/t1NfzZ_Igpc/s1600/Uber.png http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OVYK68BPu6k/U2E6Jdhpp2I/AAAAAAAAC9...
• dojomouse 12y ago
  So much criticism of Google! My question: Why on earth would Google want to cede any significant chunk of the personal transport value stream to Uber - or acquire them at a $40Bil+ valuation - when the main (only?) semi-uniquely valuable thing Uber have (a large network of drivers) is worth approximately zero dollars in a self-driving vehicle scenario. Uber are valuable and effective in a human-driven vehicle model because they have achieved critical mass in the pool of human drivers on their network, and are in a position to grow that pool. In a self driving vehicle model critical mass of vehicles/drivers is available to anyone with a decent line of credit.
  • roskilli 12y ago
    Surely the riders install base is quite valuable if both were to have as good tech and self driving cars
    • disillusioned 12y ago
      Yeah, sort of, but Google has the unique positioning of a much larger install base by virtue of Google Maps. If they integrated ride hailing and routing (essentially, their Uber competitor) directly into Maps, then Uber's rider base doesn't matter, though their head-start onboarding drivers would help for awhile.
      • visakanv 12y ago
        That was what I was thinking. I already use Google Maps like crazy. Add a "get picked up by driverless car now" button and I'm probably sold. (I don't use Uber though, I'm too broke for that right now.)
    • mathattack 12y ago
      Yes - very important. Google has failed entering other markets. The name isn't enough. But... This involves some hard science, which they're outstanding at.
    • venomsnake 12y ago
      > Surely the riders install base is quite valuable if both Google can force install their app on any android device. And if they are first driverless car owners I expect very high google ranking for all of Uber controversies in their search engine.
• deepGem 12y ago
  Regarding mapping - one overlooked aspect is the fine grain detail required for driverless cars. For example - current precision is for a road, required precision for driverless cars is for a lane. Not sure how Google can leverage Uber to solve this.
  • XorNot 12y ago
    Driverless cars use computer-vision to find lanes. They also can read street signs in some implementations. The required precision is not really a problem you'd want to try and solve with mapping alone.
• avodonosov 12y ago
  Shuld Facebook be afraid of Google Plus, and Amazon of Google App Engine? Google wants to be everywhere, but it looks like it doesn't have enough good developers. I think Uber has chance to overcome Google, even if Google really decided to compete in this area.
• zkhalique 12y ago
  How much can Google squeeze its Maps customers without antitrust kicking in? Could they just cut off Uber the same way FB or Twitter or Apple can revoke an app's access to their platform?
• xiaoma 12y ago
  gg
• domoarevil 12y ago
  Why don't G just _block_ all Uber drivers from utilizing Google Maps, forcing them to an inferior Mapping/Route product, lowering the quality of the Uber experience. (Only Uber'd a few times and I'm sure the drivers had G maps, but I may be wrong, I was surely drunk.)
• miguelrochefort 12y ago
  Is there anything special about Uber, other than its brand? How hard can it be to implement an Uber clone? Like a week? What's stopping anyone from entering this space? Is it technology? Marketing? Regulation? Trust? A secret sauce? I'd love to understand.
  • bsdpython 12y ago
    The technology itself is probably not that difficult to build. The difficulty is launching a robust two sided marketplace. Now that there are already existing two sided marketplaces in this space it makes it even more difficult for a new entrant. In the same vein, building a social network isn't that difficult but getting a huge user base to generate network effects is extremely difficult.
• rmc 12y ago
  Maybe it will be as good as Google's Facebook compeditor
• xacaxulu 12y ago
  THANK GOD!
• bhartzer 12y ago
  What are the chances that Google's "uber" program will involve self-driving cars?
  • xasos 12y ago
    This would be so cool to see. That would give Google such a huge advantage.
• IgorPartola 12y ago
  Is the long game here to have self-driving cars everywhere so that the driver can spend more time on their phone and therefore clicking on their ads?
• dannymick 12y ago
  You can talk about valuations or Google becoming a cheeky competitor to Uber but there are some deep economic implications. Millions of cab drivers or anyone who drives for a living will be losing their jobs, as a result of this.
  • tlholaday 12y ago
    > losing their jobs Changing their jobs
  • potatolicious 12y ago
    Indeed, and the way we casually throw around "oh they'll find something else to do" is shameful. Many (most!) people affected by this won't be able to retrain into new, better jobs, and the knowledge economy is largely off-limits to many of them anyways. The "retraining" argument is nothing more than a tool for our kind to disingenuously dismiss the negative impacts that come with progress. [edit] and in the time it took to write this post someone already responded to that effect, hurray HN predictability :)
    • dannymick 12y ago
      Exactly! Taxi cab drivers, in NYC, who own their medallions have taken out huge loans in order to obtain the right the drive people in New York City. They can't just "retrain"/find another job when they've got to continue driving 12 hours a day just to make ends meet and pay off their loan.
      • potatolicious 12y ago
        Even the drivers who aren't under loan obligations can't just "retrain" - where are the educational resources? How do they come up with the money to stop working and go back to school? And even if they are magically able to obtain the funds and time and ability to retrain, what kind of environment do they then face? Imagine if a taxi driver somehow got their hands on $20K and went to hacker school. What kind of treatment does a hypothetical 40 year-old ex-taxi-driver-turned-programmer face when interviewing for entry level programming jobs, in an industry infamous for its ageism and obsession with pedigree? None of this adds up. In reality the loss of entire industries means chronic unemployment and under-employment for most. We can prop up the outliers who manage to successfully move to other fields all we want, that doesn't make the poverty and desperation that results any less real. Now we can argue that the suffering of millions of people is a necessary part of progress, but pretending that these people will just magically fly off to other jobs is a level of classist lunacy that's only tenable for someone who has never stepped outside their little upper class white collar bubble.
• shinamee 12y ago
  It does actually makes sense since they have all the resources (MAP,CAR,MONEY)
• cjbenedikt 12y ago
  makes you wonder if Uber disclosed this to Goldman or their clients when raising money???
  • rasz_pl 12y ago
    you mean like this? http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/28/5758734/uber-will-eventually-replace-all-its-drivers-with-self-driving-cars http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/28/5758734/uber-will-eventual...
• sushirain 12y ago
  The key words are "long term". I am concerned that these obstacles will not be overcome in "3 to 5 years": * "Chris Urmson of Google has said that the lidar technology cannot spot potholes or humans, such as a police officer, signaling the car to stop." [1] * "Another big problem for Google is the current cost of its driverless car, which is reportedly outfitted with a whopping $250,000 in equipment." [2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_driverless_car [2] http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/01/21/3-reasons-google-incs-driverless-cars-will-hit-a-d.aspx http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/01/21/3-reasons-g...