Uber seeking to buy self-driving cars: source • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by jfoster » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 7:14 PM UTC

williamcotton wrote: post #72

How does this benefit Uber? 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 o…

It's possible that Uber & Daimler are no longer completely separate companies, right? One of them could now have a significant stake in the other.

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

#132

Post by alogray » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 7:20 PM UTC

logicallee wrote: post #60

lmm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what, 1/9th of Uber's current valuation? And it's the heart of their business.

"it's the heart of their business" but the fact that it's a fundamentally alternative business model from anything they've taken a cent of revenue on is important to note. It's like if airbnb bought $5B of Manhattan real estate. Yes, it's "the heart of their business" but also - wow.

Sure - but I think it's always been the expectation that Uber/Lyft/Sidecar before it went bellyup were participating in the sharing economy only as a stopgap until autonomous cars are available.

With Airbnb, I don't think anyone expects them to pivot into owning their own property. There's no real benefit.

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

#133

Post by SilasX » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 7:20 PM UTC

williamcotton wrote: post #72

How does this benefit Uber? 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 o…

Uber's (differential) advantage is not so much in labor organization, but rather, in having already built out a customer network and having solved all the logistical and (passenger-side) UX problems that are specific to this kind of application -- how to store, retrieve, and exploit the data, what UX decisions make the app easier to use, how to manage support, etc.

Other entrants (Tesla or Mercedes) will have to reinvent this wheel and have to market themselves and get users to download/use yet another app that does the same thing.

Personally, I think the right move for Tesla/Mercedes is to just rent out SDCs and focus on their core business rather than expand out into a different one they're new to.

(That's not an advantage against Lyft, of course.)

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

#134

Post by itslennysfault » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 7:29 PM UTC

mixedbit wrote: post #76

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?

Passengers won't be anonymous and Uber already has reputation system. Also you can already rent a car, and rented cars are usually not vandalized.

I imagine it'll be kinda like car2go or ZipCar where if you get in a car and it's messy or damaged you're supposed to report it. Presumably the person before you did the damage. If you don't report it you risk the next person reporting it and you get the blame.

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

#135

Post by desireco42 » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 7:31 PM UTC

bliti wrote: post #125

dsr_ wrote: post #112

I am reminded of Lucent, who built the best hardware for the end-user ISP market in the form of the Ascend MAX TNT, which would terminate a DS3, break it into individual dialup lines, and handle all of them as modem calls. Cool stuff. It's just that they sold all this stuff to ISPs who didn't have any good credit lines, so Lucent extended them credit (bing! interest payments!) using the MAXen as collateral. When the…

The maintenance cost of these cars in the US is high. Whoever is making this deal should probably stop by the Lexus dealership before they sign any papers.

Lexus is nowhere near Mercedes

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

#136

Post by desireco42 » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 7:33 PM UTC

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #107

adamt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> After 5 years, the car is perhaps worth 20k. No way. Absolutely no way. Looking online I'm seeing estimates of 300,000 to 500,000 miles per year in a taxi. If Uber is even NEAR that max, this car is going to have 300,000 miles on it. Hell even 150,000 is a ton of miles on a used vehicle. Looking at KBB with a base S-Class that's 5 years old with 300,000 miles you're looking at roughly $12k in "good" condition (beca…

I think this explains why they need Mercedes. It is a nice car that can have a lot of mileage easily.

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

#137

Post by jaycroft » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 7:36 PM UTC

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #122

cbr wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lowering the sale price to $7k only bumps the per-year cost to Uber from $8k to $10.5k.

True which is a $250k difference if my numbers are even correct (I mean I think they're closer than parent's but who knows). But $250k isn't that much when the company is a billion dollar company.

A difference of 250m, rather than 250k, which again, I guess still isn't that much for a 60 billion dollar company. Total depreciation on these is going to eat up up a billion in value a year, or only about 2% of market cap, assuming they keep or grow their valuation.

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

#138

Post by Animats » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 7:43 PM UTC

Why would Uber want to buy non-self-driving cars? Right now, they have their drivers buying the cars for them. Their current business model shoves all the capital costs down onto the driver. If Uber owns a lot of cars, their business model looks far different, more like Hertz. This will reduce their valuation substantially.

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

#139

Post by godzillabrennus » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 7:43 PM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #112

I am reminded of Lucent, who built the best hardware for the end-user ISP market in the form of the Ascend MAX TNT, which would terminate a DS3, break it into individual dialup lines, and handle all of them as modem calls. Cool stuff. It's just that they sold all this stuff to ISPs who didn't have any good credit lines, so Lucent extended them credit (bing! interest payments!) using the MAXen as collateral. When the…

Risk = Reward. If UBER doesn't invest in transportation powered by automated cars they risk being replaced by companies that do. General Motors and Lyft are already ready to do it if UBER doesn't. http://www.wired.com/2016/01/gm-and-lyft-are-building-a-netw...

Unlike the days of dial up where bandwidth improvements made it obsolete it's hard to see a day where we don't need reliable transportation on roads. Cars play an integral part of modern life.

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

#140

Post by zerooneinfinity » Fri, Mar 18, 2016, 7:44 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #138

Why would Uber want to buy non-self-driving cars? Right now, they have their drivers buying the cars for them. Their current business model shoves all the capital costs down onto the driver. If Uber owns a lot of cars, their business model looks far different, more like Hertz. This will reduce their valuation substantially.

Probably looking into the future which will likely be all taxing services will be self driving.