Mercedes/Audi/BMW taxis are common in Germany. This doesn't mean you'll be able to order your S class in NYC/SF any time soon.
And most of northern Europe
Southern too. There are tons of Merc taxis in Greece. Beemers or Audis not so much.
Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source
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Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, if they expect to use them as self driving cars (which the article mentions), the investment can pay out pretty quickly. Say they can make on average 5$ per ride. To make $60k they need 12k rides. A self driving car should be able to easily make 12k rides in one year (only 32 rides per day).
That was my thought actually - but reversed: Why on earth would they need that amount of cars when self-driving cars are just around the corner? If these are self-driving cars, it makes sense to me, otherwise it doesnt.
Retro-fitting. They buy plain old cars and then slap their sensor suite on top.
Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source
#43This is the (German) article this is based on: http://m.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/autoindustrie/a-1082... It says they plan to buy "a six digit number of cars", and they're only interested in self driving cars.
It Daimler can deliver cars that are able to handle Uber rides without a driver, including driving empty to location (considering Uber would send a destination location) then 100k vehicle does not sound like a lot.
That feels like a big if, though.
Having a deal in stock rather than cash also makes sense: it is unlikely that many people would buy cars from Daimler or anyone if Uber charges at cost (gas + maintenance).
Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source
#44Mercedes/Audi/BMW taxis are common in Germany. This doesn't mean you'll be able to order your S class in NYC/SF any time soon.
My thoughts exactly. Uber are struggling to get a foothold in Europe because of regulation. I suspect the plan is to become a traditional taxi or limousine operator in these hostile markets, leasing cars to licensed taxi drivers. Using S class rather than the more common C class cars would fit with their existing Uber Black service.
> in these hostile markets
"markets where regulations are enforced"
Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
They might do a special trim package for that volume. That's one way a precommit makes sense to me; a contract could be structured such that Uber gets a certain price as long as they keep up with their commitments, if they don't keep up, they pay a penalty.
I could see a trim package, but if autopilot hardware is only a few thousand dollars, it would behoove Mercedes to put it in all of its vehicles. At that point, any startup could build an interface to allow any Mercedes owner with the hardware to lease out their car through a P2P ridesharing platform. Bye Uber.
People said the same thing about Microsoft.
As it turns out, going from sensors to working self-driving car is a pretty difficult task, and Uber has some of the best self-driving researchers in the world working for them.
Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source
#46Maybe I'm missing something but that number sounds hard to believe. An S-Class in the US is $100K. Even if a stripped down "utility" version was available at $50K that's $5B worth of cars. Yes, it's a "long term" order (i.e., not paid for and delivered at once), but that seems way beyond anything even Uber would do.
I don't know, if I were an investor in Uber and saw them place a $5B order on Mercedes S-Class cars, I would think that there's a good chance they're worth $100B.
Haha, I just checked. A recent valuation is $68B. (Dec '15)
Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source
#47Mercedes/Audi/BMW taxis are common in Germany. This doesn't mean you'll be able to order your S class in NYC/SF any time soon.
You can get an S Class or similar via Uber today, but you have to order an Uber Lux, which is quite a bit more expensive than a regular Black (though I have gotten a BMW 7 Series as a Black before). Of course, none of these cars are owned by Uber.
Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source
#48Maybe I'm missing something but that number sounds hard to believe. An S-Class in the US is $100K. Even if a stripped down "utility" version was available at $50K that's $5B worth of cars. Yes, it's a "long term" order (i.e., not paid for and delivered at once), but that seems way beyond anything even Uber would do.
The deal is probably similar to the way an airline buys planes. E.g consider when Ryanair bought 200 737s for $22Bn [1] which is about the same in it's entire market cap. An order like this is probably: * For a delivery spread over 10+ years * The vehicles will almost certainly be leased/finance * Each vehicle will probably assume a 5+ year working life and have a residual of about perhaps 25% of list after 5 years g…
The average taxi puts 70k miles per year on their car. So after 5 years these will have 350000 miles. Its not going to be worth anywhere near $20k
Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I could see a trim package, but if autopilot hardware is only a few thousand dollars, it would behoove Mercedes to put it in all of its vehicles. At that point, any startup could build an interface to allow any Mercedes owner with the hardware to lease out their car through a P2P ridesharing platform. Bye Uber.
People said the same thing about Microsoft. As it turns out, going from sensors to working self-driving car is a pretty difficult task, and Uber has some of the best self-driving researchers in the world working for them.
Right, but Tesla has vehicles on the road, now, with a high level of autonomy (driving across the country autonomously 96 percent of the time: http://jalopnik.com/we-set-a-cross-country-record-in-a-telsa...) that are gathering massive amounts of data (40 million/miles/month) from vehicle owners as they drive.
Its an uphill climb for Uber. They will need to fund their vehicles; Tesla funds their battery manufacturing, vehicle manufacturing, and autopilot telemetry corpus buildouts using the vehicles owners have paid for.
Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, if they expect to use them as self driving cars (which the article mentions), the investment can pay out pretty quickly. Say they can make on average 5$ per ride. To make $60k they need 12k rides. A self driving car should be able to easily make 12k rides in one year (only 32 rides per day).
That was my thought actually - but reversed: Why on earth would they need that amount of cars when self-driving cars are just around the corner? If these are self-driving cars, it makes sense to me, otherwise it doesnt.
It's hard to come up with a huge number of cars on the spot once self-driving cars are available. It's much easier to retrofit your already existing cars.