81–90 of 134 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uber is worth 60 billion dollars. It is 2megacorps fighting each other.
Honest question, I have little VC expertise. Are these valuations relatively legit? Do the people with money at stake have undue influence on the number?
Uber's self-driving system doesn't actually have to work beyond the demo level. It's mostly to pump up the company's valuation. Uber is losing money, and unless they find another sucker within a year, they're toast. They've already had to borrow on unfavorable terms.[1] Operating a fleet of self-driving cars may turn out to be a lousy business. Uber's business model is built around others buying the cars, maintaining…
I am very surprised this comment got the top votes. OP - in which world do you live in? Uber already lease out vehicles so people who don't have a car but want to drive for Uber.... can lease it out from them.
Uber does not have to maintain their cars. They can sign an AMC with some company.
Question: how public are these hearings? Is there a place we could get transcripts of them? (I remember previous days had snippets of transcripts (at the very least))
Uber's self-driving system doesn't actually have to work beyond the demo level. It's mostly to pump up the company's valuation. Uber is losing money, and unless they find another sucker within a year, they're toast. They've already had to borrow on unfavorable terms.[1] Operating a fleet of self-driving cars may turn out to be a lousy business. Uber's business model is built around others buying the cars, maintaining…
> Running a fleet of self-driving cars is running a car rental company. I am very surprised this comment got the top votes. OP - in which world do you live in? Uber already lease out vehicles so people who don't have a car but want to drive for Uber.... can lease it out from them. Uber does not have to maintain their cars. They can sign an AMC with some company.
The guy then says on the phone, "I'll get this guy to drive me too it." He takes forever to get all his crap out of the car and says "We can drive-"
"Dude, it's two blocks that way. I'm paying by the minute. I'm not driving you.."
..and I thought to myself, there is no way this guy is really a Lyft/Uber driver and is using ReachNow or Zipcars? Even if that wasn't against policy (which I have a feeling it is), that also has to be incredibly expensive. How does he turn a profit?
I don't get Levandowski's 5th amendment claim on the privilege log. Doesn't the 5th amendment only stop the individual from incriminating himself? How can he argue that other people (or an entire company in this case) are not allowed to incriminate him? Has anyone successfully claimed 5th amendment and forced other people/entities not to incriminate him/her?
Uber's self-driving system doesn't actually have to work beyond the demo level. It's mostly to pump up the company's valuation. Uber is losing money, and unless they find another sucker within a year, they're toast. They've already had to borrow on unfavorable terms.[1] Operating a fleet of self-driving cars may turn out to be a lousy business. Uber's business model is built around others buying the cars, maintaining…
I think the biggest cost in this business is the human component. For that all you need to do is check the price difference between renting for a day or getting taxi for a day. Given a choice, Uber would love to be the first to have self driving cars. Once they do that their business model scales predictably with capital. Whoever gets self driving technology right, will own all transportation and logistics - which is…
Even under an optimistic scenario, might have a two-year SDC monopoly, after which others can offer the same product. That's still not nearly long enough to justify the valuation.
Uber's self-driving system doesn't actually have to work beyond the demo level. It's mostly to pump up the company's valuation. Uber is losing money, and unless they find another sucker within a year, they're toast. They've already had to borrow on unfavorable terms.[1] Operating a fleet of self-driving cars may turn out to be a lousy business. Uber's business model is built around others buying the cars, maintaining…
Uber's self-driving system doesn't actually have to work beyond the demo level. It's mostly to pump up the company's valuation. Uber is losing money, and unless they find another sucker within a year, they're toast. They've already had to borrow on unfavorable terms.[1] Operating a fleet of self-driving cars may turn out to be a lousy business. Uber's business model is built around others buying the cars, maintaining…
I think the biggest cost in this business is the human component. For that all you need to do is check the price difference between renting for a day or getting taxi for a day. Given a choice, Uber would love to be the first to have self driving cars. Once they do that their business model scales predictably with capital. Whoever gets self driving technology right, will own all transportation and logistics - which is…
There's also the burden of convenience. A taxi is an instant, summonable affair that ends completely with the trip. A hire car has to be hired and returned to a specific location, you have to stow it during your hire period and you have to fuel it. Beyond the tangible costs of fuel, parking, etc. there's also the opportunity cost. For exmaple, people will pay for convenience of a car to pick them up and take them home when drinking, and they may only need the hire car for a couple of 10 minute bursts but you can't hire a car for less than a 24 hour period. Both of those help buoy the cost of a taxi.
I'm not suggesting you're wrong, but it's not as simple as [hire car] + [driver] = [taxi] from a cost perspective.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the biggest cost in this business is the human component. For that all you need to do is check the price difference between renting for a day or getting taxi for a day. Given a choice, Uber would love to be the first to have self driving cars. Once they do that their business model scales predictably with capital. Whoever gets self driving technology right, will own all transportation and logistics - which is…
I think Matt Levine succinctly said it best: >Eventually there will be self-driving cars, and there's no special reason to think that Uber will be the best at building them, or that its dominant position in the ride-hailing-app space will protect it from better self-driving-car businesses.
On the other hand, I feel that we will not have self driving cars for a really long time. Instead I believe we will have flying cars before that, who will solve the last mile problem. They will take you from the house to the hub and hub to the final destination. Buses can transport people between hubs.
With self driving cars you need to deal with existing regulations, traffic rules, other drives on road, people jaywalking, animals running into you.
However with flying cars - you literally have exponentially more roads in air (which don't even have to be built). No existing regulations (unless at risk of being in flight path). Technology is already there (make drones bigger). These drones will communicate using MESH networks leading to lesser risk of collisions.
I also feel that Elon Musk is doing something really smart with The Boring Company. If he can dramatically reduce the cost of building tunnels (like he did with space travel) - he could build a lot of underground roads at a lower cost and faster pace than roads on surface. No need to deal with buying out land and getting approvals.
Imagine if these tunnels are exclusive to Tesla cars, who can auto-drive these tunnels for long distances. No need to worry about other cars, animals, rain, snow, traffic regulations. All the problems that auto driving cars are facing now, will go away. Multiple Tesla cars will communicate with each other using MESH network. Teslas could be driving in these tunnels at 150+ mph and discharged cars could be swapped with charged cars on the way. Drivers might need to take over minimally just for the last mile.
If a tunnel like this could be built between SF to LA. It could be faster door to door vs flight.
To get started, a tunnel from SF to really South Bay could have an huge impact on the commute.
I do not have much experience of these industries. So these are my hypotheses. Would love to know what others think!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the biggest cost in this business is the human component. For that all you need to do is check the price difference between renting for a day or getting taxi for a day. Given a choice, Uber would love to be the first to have self driving cars. Once they do that their business model scales predictably with capital. Whoever gets self driving technology right, will own all transportation and logistics - which is…
For that all you need to do is check the price difference between renting for a day or getting taxi for a day There's also the burden of convenience. A taxi is an instant, summonable affair that ends completely with the trip. A hire car has to be hired and returned to a specific location, you have to stow it during your hire period and you have to fuel it. Beyond the tangible costs of fuel, parking, etc. there's also…
However from Uber's point of view - cost of 24 hours to rental company vs cost of 24 hours of taxi+driver would probably be a good approximation to get an idea of the order of saving which might make owing self driving cars feasible for Uber vs their current business model.