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Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

reuters.com

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Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#61

Post by toomuchtodo »

bergie wrote: post #53
toomuchtodo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you'd find any manufacturer who would tool up for a bespoke car. Uber either needs to buy an existing manufacturer with existing large scale capacity, or build out their own capacity. And we've seen with Tesla how much and long that capacity takes to build out for only 100K vehicles/year. Uber is capital chasing a potential treasure chest. Google, Tesla, GM/Lyft/Cruise are the real players it appears.

There are contract manufacturers also in the automobile industry. For example the Finnish Valmet Automotive has been building Porches, and is now doing some MB cars. http://www.valmet-automotive.com/automotive/cms.nsf/pages/in...

A quick Google search didn't find me their manufacturing capacity, but I'm curious if it approaches what Uber might need to compete.

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#62

Post by Someone »

mixedbit wrote: post #23
mmakunas wrote: post #6

Maybe 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.

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).

Only 32 rides per day? I would think that's pushing the limit. You will have to buy cars for peak times, so most of them will see only a few hours of use each day. At a guessed 6 hours of busy service a day, that's 5 trips an hour, or 6 minutes to drive to a customer and 6 to drive him where he wants to be.

Also, a risk here is that other large parties will make the same calculation, flood the market (anybody with money will be able to start a cab company with a lot less hassle from labor laws because you don't need that much personnel) and drive margins down.

To win in this space you probably will need both a lean model of operations and a good image in the customer's eye. Uber currently seems to have both, but committing _now_ to a provider of cars is risky (what if other manufacturers turn out to have better or cheaper self-driving cars?). On the other hand, it also may be necessary to commit now in order to stay lean (committing now probably gets them a nice price cut)

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#63

Post by ams6110 »

jgrahamc wrote: post #56
encoderer wrote: post #52

The S-Class is an interesting choice. I'd wager that most people have never been in a car as nice as an S Class before -- no comparison really to the town car people associate today with Uber Black. The back seat has massage, heat and cool, individual entertainment options, power recline. Some of these things could be customized, but Mercedes isn't going to tarnish the reputation of their flagship sedan so Uber can h…

The S-Class is a very common model for a taxi in Germany.

Yes Mercedes taxis are common throughout Scandinavia also but they are workhorse models, still very nice but without the "S" level of luxury details and engine power.

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#65

Post by timme »

jgrahamc wrote: post #56
encoderer wrote: post #52

The S-Class is an interesting choice. I'd wager that most people have never been in a car as nice as an S Class before -- no comparison really to the town car people associate today with Uber Black. The back seat has massage, heat and cool, individual entertainment options, power recline. Some of these things could be customized, but Mercedes isn't going to tarnish the reputation of their flagship sedan so Uber can h…

The S-Class is a very common model for a taxi in Germany.

No it's not. Most of them are E-classes.

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#66

Post by nikkwong »

Another concern for uber is what are people going to do to the inside of these driverless cars now? Passengers today are respectful to ridesharing vehicles they sit in--because the owner of the vehicle is close at hand and the human connection commands some respect. But when its just a group of (maybe drunk) passengers in an empty vehicle--where's the accountability?

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#67

Post by f_allwein »

bertil wrote: post #43
f_allwein wrote: post #38

This 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)…

no pressure on Daimler then...

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#69

Post by nmrm2 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #49
nmrm2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

1. I was responding to your Mercedes/Uber scenario; the comment I was replying to literally didn't mention Tesla (which fits more aptly to Apple's position in the desktop computing analogy).

2. Interstate driving autonomy and city driving autonomy are different beasts. Gathering a ton of data about task X isn't necessarily helpful for task Y; ML isn't magical. If anyone, Google is ahead of the pack in the market Uber is vying for (automated taxis).

Re: Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source

#70

Post by mahyarm »

nikkwong wrote: post #66

Another concern for uber is what are people going to do to the inside of these driverless cars now? Passengers today are respectful to ridesharing vehicles they sit in--because the owner of the vehicle is close at hand and the human connection commands some respect. But when its just a group of (maybe drunk) passengers in an empty vehicle--where's the accountability?

Cameras? You could even just take a picture when they come out and when the cars come back for the cleaning crews, they'll find out pretty quickly which rider to charge the cleaning fee.
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