How can they make so much money while also losing so much money?
Isn't it just an app with some staff and lawyers? Where did all the money go?
Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue
301–310 of 424 posts
Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue
#302OH! This explains why they're in so big a rush for self-driving cars that they can't even be bothered to stop at red lights...
Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue
#303Uber is making the rest of us in SV look terrible. 1. Collect a huge pile of money at sky-high valuations from those who really should know better. 2. Ignore any sensible unit economics and undercut local taxi/transport services until those small businesses go bankrupt since they don't have Uber's money pile. 3. Evade local regulations that everyone else follows in the name of 'innovation' even though the reality is…
Taxi companies are "small businesses"? Like in NYC, where taxi medallions used to be a safe investment? I guess mafia enterprises are "small businesses" and taxi and limo companies are not far from those. Zero compassion for those.
Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uber autonomous doesn't have to be better than the best human drivers in all conditions. They only have to be much better than the average human driver in all conditions. This isn't a very high threshold to meet.
I would point out that as much as people complain about how well cabbies drive, they have way more hours behind the wheel than most people. Quick calculation: Lets think about people who drive their whole lives, not city folks. Lets think about work hours driving as it's likely to be the most by quantity, and vacation or pleasure driving should be roughly equivalent. 30 minutes each average way 5 days a week starting…
A couple things to note:
1) Average driver drives ~13.5K miles/year (http://cars.lovetoknow.com/about-cars/how-many-miles-do-amer...) with an average speed of ~32 mph (http://www.ridetowork.org/transportation-fact-sheet). This translates into 420 hours/year. Or a person becoming an expert driver by the age of 40, if we accept the "10,000 hours rule"...
2) But the Gladwell's "10,000 hours rule" was proven wrong (http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797614535810). For example, if we follow FAA that recently changed the rules to require 1500 hours for ATP (i.e. airline pilots) license, then you are talking about 3.5 years (for average driver) vs. 9 months (for taxi driver). Not that big of a difference.
This means that on average the US driver becomes an "expert" by the age of 21-22. This actually matches quite well with the insurance company rates that drop drastically at about this age.
Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not before destroying any competition with cripplingly low rates. That's the problem: I can't hail a goddamn taxi anymore, despite it being cheaper by any back of the envelope calculation for society as a whole.
> despite it being cheaper by any back of the envelope calculation for society as a whole. How is it 'cheaper' to manufacture extra yellow cars and have them drive around aimlessly searching the streets for fares vs. hitching a ride with my neighbour who drives for Uber part-time with the personal car he'd have bought anyways?
>drive around aimlessly searching the streets for fare
That's not how Taxis work in my neck of the woods.
I call a company, get a cab at the time I want it.
Or I use their app or website, share my location, and get a cab arriving at the time I want it to.
And yes, they still pay the driving a living wage, take care of the insurance and don't treat me like crap unlike Uber.
Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
Self driving cars change everything.
Can you be more specific? Their self-driving tech is worth $70B? If it's the combination, then I still don't quite get it. Wouldn't any good self-driving tech pretty easily adapt to ride hailing? Let's say it's a best case for Uber: there are only few self-driving techs out there, and Uber is one; and they dominate ride hailing, and start turning a profit. Couldn't another self-driving tech company snap up Lyft and b…
It seems like self driving cars would reduce the importance of the network effect and make the barrier to entry a capital one (cost of the fleet).
I'd like to see how much utilization the drivers in a typical market are getting. In order for the self-driving fleet-ownership model of future-uber to work, I think the vehicle utilization would need to be relatively high to make it economically competitive with car owning.
It also occurs to me that ride-hailing may not be a good substitute for those who use a car to commute. $70B starts to look awfully high if most people still need to own a car to get to work....
Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue
#307Uber will be a dead Unicorn in the medium future. They've got too many legal pressures, competitors with native advantages (i.e. the automakers), and their expansion plans have them overextended. Here in Edmonton, AB, Canada, regulatory changes have pushed the Uber prices to almost 2x during non-surge times over regular taxis. Taxi's have stepped up. Local competitors have sprouted. Carshares are abounding. It's all…
I've got $5 that says their death will result from the first human one(s) at the hands of their self-driving cars. Comparisons to Icarus will be legion among former admirers.
Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue
#308OH! This explains why they're in so big a rush for self-driving cars that they can't even be bothered to stop at red lights...
Wasn't it clarified that the incident was caused by the driver and not the software?
Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue
#309Uber is making the rest of us in SV look terrible. 1. Collect a huge pile of money at sky-high valuations from those who really should know better. 2. Ignore any sensible unit economics and undercut local taxi/transport services until those small businesses go bankrupt since they don't have Uber's money pile. 3. Evade local regulations that everyone else follows in the name of 'innovation' even though the reality is…
Oh, you forgot: 4. Dump all your drivers once your self-piloting cars come fully online Drivers are just the stepping stone...
Self driving cars won't make financial sense in a lot of regions.
The driver plus bring your own vehicle model is a mostly operational cost model where the cost slides based on region, which makes it perfect for rolling out on a global scale.
The self driving taxi service model has a significant capital cost associated with it and that cost won't slide much based on region. It would take far too long to see meaningful returns on self driving taxis in India for example.
Re: Uber's Loss Exceeds $800M in Q3 on $1.7B in Net Revenue
#310Uber will be a dead Unicorn in the medium future. They've got too many legal pressures, competitors with native advantages (i.e. the automakers), and their expansion plans have them overextended. Here in Edmonton, AB, Canada, regulatory changes have pushed the Uber prices to almost 2x during non-surge times over regular taxis. Taxi's have stepped up. Local competitors have sprouted. Carshares are abounding. It's all…
I think this is like arguing that Amazon would never be worth a Billion dollars because there aren't enough book buyers. If we were talking about Uber's current model then you're 100% correct. But if we look at all to where they're going there's tremendous potential. They bought Otto - which is arguably the leader in self driving trucking and they have self driving trucks on the road right now. If they're able to cap…
You are missing some points:
> They bought Otto - which is arguably the leader in self driving trucking and they have self driving trucks on the road right now. If they're able to capture say 20% of the trucking market 10 years from now that's tremendous.
Otto until now is not a truck company. They are not producing any truck. They are just retrofitting their technology in existing trucks. It is like what Google does and what I told everybody and laughed at me. Google had and has no interest in building cars. They have a very bad track record in building hardware for consumers. That said, Google is a software company. Google wants to sell their Software knowhow to the car industry. The very same seems to be true for Otto. Otto is just a technology company that does retrofitting. But all the truck manufacturers are building their technology directly into the trucks. Remember, that Freightliner and other Brands are a Daimler company. Daimler has self-driving technology for their cars and are integrating them into the trucks. The future for Otto would be a partnership with at least one big truck manufacturer, which is not in sight. Otto will become obsolete, when it does not get such a partnership. So for Uber that is a high risk investment.
> They're in a legal fight in SF because they're trying to get self driving cars going. What are their numbers going to look like when they aren't paying drivers anymore?
You forget, that in the case of self-driving cars, then Uber has to buy (or lease) those cars. Today, they pay the drivers only for the work done, while the driver has to pay for the car and the service. So the risk and costs are distributed to the drivers. But with self-driving cars these costs are becoming Uber's costs. But Uber has until know no knowledge on handling own property. What about Car2Go, Zipcar, and alike? They can easily exchange their existing car fleets. They have knowledge and experiences on handle car fleets. Think about that.