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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?
Imagine Daimler can produce 100,000 self-driving cars. They would continue to produce and sell self-driving cars to other people as well. They could sell self-driving cars to Lyft. Individuals could operate their own self-driving car services. They could organize in to cartels and have a single app that competes with Uber or Lyft.
Uber is destined to be a commodity in an open marketplace of taxi services as soon as they adopt self-driving cars. Their primary roll right now is as a labor organization. They currently create the economic incentives needed to attract a fleet of drivers. Self-driving cars are not motivated by economic incentives. Uber can't control the sale, distribution and organization of self-driving cars.
All that riders care about is being able to reliably get from one side of town to another. They'll know that they can trust Daimler self-driving cars, regardless of the dispatcher.
We're going to end up right back to where we started, with a commodity system of private taxi dispatchers and a productive industry of automobile manufacturers, with an emphasis on the automatic nature of this new form of transportation.
Daimler is the big winner here if they can bring a self-driving car to market.
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…
If that was the case, the volume makes sense. Makes zero sense to buy 100,000 of today's model and watch it depreciate in value while providing none back 'cause you still need a driver.
I know Uber calls their service "Black". But in hot climates white cars make more sense. Burn less resources keeping cool.
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?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure there's a volume discount when you order 100,000 of anything, even an S-Class. There's also the possibility of this not entirely being a cash sale. That is, if the report is even true.
Yeah but how much of a discount? The example in question was already assuming $50k per car which is already a tremendous discount. Even if you cut it in half again to $25k (which there's no way the price per car is that low) that's still $2.5B in cars. That's insanity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The S-Class is a very common model for a taxi in Germany.
No it's not. Most of them are E-classes.
Uber operates in a grey-area legal environment in the cities it operates in. Uber's defense / view on this is that they generate such a societal positive in terms of jobs that it outweighs the legal constraints.
But, when your goal is to eventually use a fleet of self-driving cars and eliminate the job possibilities for drivers, isn't that a moot point?