Sometimes due to heavy rains or unfavourable weather , getting a uber or even a normal cab becomes really difficult. I am from India ( so it happens here) . Facing that kind of situation may deter from people giving up owning a car.
Why I don't believe in Uber's Success
361–370 of 413 posts
Re: Why I don't believe in Uber's Success
#362Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my opinion self driving cars are a shiny object to distract VC's from Uber's massive operating losses. When they start making money with self-driving cars on a large scale then I'll take notice.
wait 5-10 years? there aren't any self-driving cars in commercial use right now. VC investors often have long term timelines (depends on the fund and it's objectives). It's not exactly a distraction tactic to say "our timeline projects out for a decade and we expect to be operating in the red until the technology and politics aligns and comes to fruition, at which point we make infinite money forever."
Can Uber make it 5-10 years losing $3 billion per year?
Re: Why I don't believe in Uber's Success
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that market is smaller than you may think. There are lots of factors that will drive people to own their own self-driving cars rather than rely exclusively on Uber/Lyft/Tesla Mobility, etc.
You mean parents won't want to constantly move their car seats from vehicle to another on a regular basis?
So buy one car for the 10 years in your life where you have kids that need cars seats and then rent for the other 50 years of your adult life. It wouldn't need to cover literally every use case in the world to have a major impact on the economy.
Re: Why I don't believe in Uber's Success
#364The commercial airline industry has lost money over the whole of its existence. If I'm flying from NYC to DAL, I'm flying the cheapest carrier (with a slight nod to Frequent Flyer programs). I'm not sure how Uber, Lyft, etc are any different than Southwest, American, etc. Cab companies (which I hate) and airlines saw this years ago and promoted regulations to protect their fees (and, thereby, wages). Airlines lost th…
TFA and a lot of commenters here don't seem to understand that Uber doesn't want to compete with taxi services, which are a niche business to be disrupted en route to the real prize. It wants to compete with your car - imagine 12 lanes of L.A. traffic composed mostly of Ubers. That's their dream. They even admit this in public. [0] The day they can get cost per mile one penny below what you'd spend owning a Toyota Ca…
Uber is going to make a market for but car manufacturers are going to eat its lunch. When Ai becomes good enough which I think will in the next 5 years they will flood the market with their own cars and taxi services.
Re: Why I don't believe in Uber's Success
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a self driving world, peak traffic will be served by buses. (Or subways in cities that can handle it) Like everything - high bandwidth vehicles will do the bulk of the work, and seamlessly trade off to "last mile" self driving small vehicles.
I'd think self driving cars would kill busses. I'd much rather nap / work / watch TV / do hobbies in my car (where I'd keep stuff for doing all that), then in a bus. If the car is electric, it isn't so bad on the environment, and it can park itself in a no humans allowed garage (so little chance for breakins). As for rush hour, I'd hope swarm scheduling lowers congestion substantially (though this and making longer c…
Lol, that is highly unrealistic. Where is this magical secure garage going to come from? Underground parking costs $40k per spot to build, above ground is similar. Add in the cost of security and the long term costs of parking are extremely high. The parking minimums in most places force parking to be heavily subsidized, which isn't a sustainable model when it comes to long term matienece of suburban areas, unless we can heavily increase taxes to pay (5x to 6x) for road, water, sewer, and all other maintenance needed.
Re: Why I don't believe in Uber's Success
#366Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as war chest goes, Uber basically has no competition. As far as their routing and vehicle management algorithms go, there already exist companies with more sophisticated routing systems than Uber. Uber's routing algorithm is basically nearest neighbor search at a massive scale - which is perfect for the on-demand nature of their business; the companies that I'm referring to can support on-demand routing as wel…
> As far as war chest goes, Uber basically has no competition. Google has more money coming in half year than Uber has ever raised, and it's from profits . The major car companies also have billions of dollars of revenue and collectively they hold hundreds of billions, possibly trillions, of dollars of fully depreciated assets.
You're right about the cash available, but how much is Google (and its investors) willing to lose to compete with Uber? Are Google's investors willing to put up with another [vastly more expensive] Google Plus?
Because when I say war chest, I mean Uber is willing to lose it all. Rides are Uber's only revenue source, whereas Google has never made a cent in that industry.
Re: Why I don't believe in Uber's Success
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
Question is, who are competitors with same scope as them? I don't know any. They are already in position to just switch over. Others would have to build their network first. It's a running start that depends on them playing their cards right.
> Question is, who are competitors with same scope as them? I don't know any. Presumably traditional car manufacturers (GM, Ford, Toyota, BMW, etc.), upstart car manufacturers (Tesla), and even other large tech conglomerates (Google, Baidu, etc.). > They are already in position to just switch over. Others would have to build their network first. It's a running start that depends on them playing their cards right. Ube…
Google may be a competitor, but it may be more of an enabler of competitors to Uber, by way of, e.g., it's ridesharing feature in Maps.
Re: Why I don't believe in Uber's Success
#368Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Uber we know right now will probably transition into the self-driving car-based company for freight, passenger transport and ride sharing. It'll be a bit unsettling to see what'll happen to the drivers they're using right now. I personally think that Uber is not an ethical company (I do live in Europe). They are exploiting tax and legal loopholes to profit off of both drivers and countries, simply because regulat…
I only want to point out, UBER isn't profiting from anything. They are literally burning money to subsidize their growth.
Travis Kalanick is probably taking home a hefty paycheck, though.
Re: Why I don't believe in Uber's Success
#369Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can't say I speak for everyone but I mostly walk to get to places and drive when I have to. I live close enough to an ALDI to get most of my groceries by walking and I can walk to work too. Owning a car means always needing a parking space, going out to get gas, paying for insurance, inspections, etc, having to be capable of driving (because when I'm sauced on a Saturday night I really want to get greasy food, but I…
I agree - car ownership is expensive. So we get by mostly on our bikes. Reasons we still have a car: - Moving big things - Shopping for big things - Camping - Driving out for the weekend to visit family 1.5 hours out of town - Baby in baby seat None of these things can easily be targeted by Uber. I rarely use taxis and uber, and my friend's that do, use it as replacement for public transport and not their car.
- Moving big things, Shopping for big things.
Van rental (with driver) are a thing, at least where I live, where personal car ownership isn't really a thing.
See for example: https://www.gogovan.com.hk/en/
Big place to shop (e.g.: IKEA) offer delivery.
Re: Why I don't believe in Uber's Success
#370Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I have a trillion-dollar business: I take dollar bills from one person and give them directly to another and repeat that a trillion times a year."
Maybe there can be profit to be made from this business too with a bit of _delay_ in between receiving and giving. I'm trying here just to imagine this company. I think it will work because of the scale. I'm thinking: I take dolar bills from one person, I keep them 10 days and then I give them to another one. And I repeat this for 1 trillion dollar value. Even if the profit in 10 days is 0.1% then you will have 1 mil…
This is how Amazon benefits from free cash flow in their retail business. With payment days of >90 days to their suppliers but almost immediate payment from their customers they get 90 days to reinvest that money at a profit before paying it back. Essentially an interest free loan from their suppliers.