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Uber vs. Car Ownership

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Uber vs. Car Ownership

#71

Post by rdl »

mikeash wrote: post #66
cjbarber wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair: It seems like Sam wrote this in response to queries after he posted this tweet "just did the math. it's now cheaper for me to get rid of my car and uber everywhere (gas, parking, maintianence, insurance, depreciation) ." And then he posted the calculation on Twitter.

That would be fine if the article was just about his personal costs. But it's not. The last paragraph makes it clear that he thinks this calculation applies to enough people to make a difference of billions of dollars in Uber's valuation.

There's an argument that while Sam's living in the future, other people will be joining him.

Re: Uber vs. Car Ownership

#72

Post by hackuser »

rusabd wrote: post #20

In Kazakhstan you can hail any car on the street - the cost of travel would be about 5 dollars. People still buy cars because for certain trips it is inconvenient (e.g. going to/from an airport, shopping, travels outside cities, non-popular routes). This system also coexists with normal taxi services which are more expensive but the fares are still suppressed.

> you can hail any car on the street

This makes a lot of sense. New Yorkers might charge more. I would guess the biggest objection would be safety -- how do you know you're not getting in the car of a kidnapper, thief, rapist, etc.?

On one hand, I think people greatly over-estimate that risk. On the other, many criminals likely would take advantage of the service to find victims.

What do the Kazaks do about that?

Re: Uber vs. Car Ownership

#73

Post by mikeash »

rdl wrote: post #71
mikeash wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be fine if the article was just about his personal costs. But it's not. The last paragraph makes it clear that he thinks this calculation applies to enough people to make a difference of billions of dollars in Uber's valuation.

There's an argument that while Sam's living in the future, other people will be joining him.

I really hope the future doesn't involve an order of magnitude increase in the cost of car ownership.

Re: Uber vs. Car Ownership

#74

Post by mastermojo »

dsil wrote: post #34
mastermojo wrote: post #25

I actually have some personal numbers after owning a second hand 2000 Mustang for 1 year from 112k to 121k miles exactly since yesterday. I got the car for 6000. Uber 9000 miles x $2 = 18000 Personal Car: 7000 Maintenance 2500 - new bumper (old one taken off while street parked) 1000 - replaced foggy headlamps 400. purely cosmetic reasons - side window smashed 800. never park in oakland =( - oil changes etc? (200 at…

Hold on, what you're missing is the last part of the essay, the difference in value of time spent driving vs time spent riding an Uber. Say you averaged going 45mph. Then your 9000 miles took 200 hours. And you'd spend $4000 extra to use Uber, so not having to drive would cost $20/hour. Depends how you'd use that time, but for many it would be well worth $20/hour to be able to do other things, like bill hours.

Most people are always balancing the time/money tradeoff with how much they enjoy the task.

i.e do I do my own laundry, clean my own place, drive my own car, cook my own food?

Re: Uber vs. Car Ownership

#75

Post by plorkyeran »

mikeash wrote: post #73
rdl wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an argument that while Sam's living in the future, other people will be joining him.

I really hope the future doesn't involve an order of magnitude increase in the cost of car ownership.

Not to mention that if the cost of car ownership does go up an order of magntiude, the price of uberX would probably also go up quite a bit.

Re: Uber vs. Car Ownership

#76

Post by rdl »

mikeash wrote: post #67
btilly wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you're prone to motion sickness, like I am, then the value of that time you get back is approximately $0.

Quite possible negative. For many people it can easily be a net negative to be driven around rather than driving one's self simply in terms of how you feel afterwards. All else being equal, I'd prefer to drive than be driven. Sometimes not all else is equal, like parking is hard, or I'm taking a trip and need to leave the car for the wife, and then I take a taxi or Uber or something. But I would assign a value of som…

I prefer driving, but am ok with being a passenger in the right car with a driver I personally know (i.e. my driver, vs. even a random guy from the motor pool, and certainly not UberX or a black car/taxi driver). For me I'd pay $50/hr to drive on a great road, $20 for most roads on e.g. the Peninsula, $0 for stop-and-go or SF anytime, -$20 to have a meh driver drive me around (black car or great uberx) or a very luxurious or empty train; $0-20 for a great driver I know and trust, -$50 for most taxis or a slightly crowded train, and -$100 for Thai taxis or public transit on wheels.

Re: Uber vs. Car Ownership

#77

Post by dragonwriter »

eurleif wrote: post #59
dragonwriter wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automation isn't competition; in fact, it is a factor which increases capital costs in the industry, spurs consolidation and monopolization.

Google isn't the only company developing autonomous cars. Multiple car companies have own working prototypes. So it doesn't look like there's any monopolization of the technology itself. It seems likely that the capital cost of an autonomous car will be roughly comparable to the capital cost of a normal car.

Sure, but a self-driving car by itself is of fairly limited utility in a taxi operation; the advantage that they provide comes with the data gathering and analysis system that provides centralized control of the fleet. Automation, as it matures, should drive down the per-car cost and drive up the competitive advantage of the player that can expend the most on central resources.

When you reduce the relative importance of the per-unit cost and drive up the relative importance of centralized costs, you make a market that has stronger natural tendency to form a monopoly, because there is more of a positive feedback loop reinforcing the position of the leading player.

Re: Uber vs. Car Ownership

#78

Post by mikeash »

plorkyeran wrote: post #75
mikeash wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope the future doesn't involve an order of magnitude increase in the cost of car ownership.

Not to mention that if the cost of car ownership does go up an order of magntiude, the price of uberX would probably also go up quite a bit.

That's the big problem I see with getting any significant number of people to use the service. Most people use cars to commute. An UberX driver is generally only going to be able to handle one person's commute, since most people commute at roughly the same time. Most of them won't find any work at other times, because demand is much lower. So for that to work out, most UberX drivers would effectively be one person's private chauffeur, and somehow this is supposed to be cheaper than owning a car yourself, even though you'd effectively be paying for your own car and a driver.

I'm sure it can scale up more than now, but how much farther?

Re: Uber vs. Car Ownership

#79

Post by bicknergseng »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #27
bicknergseng wrote: post #23

To be fair, the Tesla Roadster is a pretty odd example. I'm not sure $5,000/year depreciation with $3,500/year for maintenance seems reasonable for almost anything. Am I wrong in thinking that most cars depreciating at that rate will have very low or 0 maintenance costs not covered under warranty? For example, a 2014 Honda Civic with 1 mile on it (example) is ~$17k, while a 2013 with 6k miles is ~$15k (KBB values). T…

"Pretty odd" is generous of you. Nonsense is what it is. It's like saying that drinking craft beer for all your hydration needs is cheaper than drinking water, but citing one of these[1] as your baseline for comparison. [1] http://www.therichest.com/expensive-lifestyle/entertainment/...

Depends on what city you live in. Drinking craft beer for all hydration needs is perfectly acceptable in Portland, OR.
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