# After TK's first ride in a self-driving car, he said....



## DanB (Mar 18, 2016)

*The inside story of the rise and rise of Uber*

*07 Feb 2017 - TechCrunch*

_Travis Kalanick took his first ride in a Google self driving car in 2013. Afterward he told one of the Google Ventures partners, "The minute your car becomes real, I can take the dude out of the front seat.... I call that margin expansion."_

Brad Stone's new book, The Upstarts, recounts the surprising rise - and possible fall - of the sharing economy. By looking at Uber and AirBnB, Stone brings life and drama to the origin stories of how a few lucky guys made the right decisions at exactly the right time. What follows is an excerpt detailing the rise of Uber.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/07/the-inside-story-of-the-rise-and-rise-of-uber/


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## Jermin8r89 (Mar 10, 2016)

Take the "dude" out of front seat. I see woman drivers to dont forget about them also


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## AllenChicago (Nov 19, 2015)

2/22/2017

SELF-DRIVING UBER CARS made their debut in Arizona today.
Full Story: https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/21/ubers-self-driving-vehicles-are-picking-up-folks-in-arizona/


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## uberdriverfornow (Jan 10, 2016)

Let's see how the Governor's attitude towards self-driving cars becomes as soon as one of them kills someone. 

And let's keep in mind there has yet to EVER be a fully self-driving ride with no driver yet. But they gotta keep the charade going to keep the investor money rolling in.

It's great that that pool fare skimming lawsuit just hit. That should keep em busy on another front. The more fronts that open up against Uber the less time they'll have to come up with more driver-screwing schemes.


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## K-pax (Oct 29, 2016)

Jermin8r89 said:


> Take the "dude" out of front seat. I see woman drivers to dont forget about them also


Don't worry. Travis wants to put female drivers out of work as well. Everyone will be equally unemployed.


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## ABC123DEF (Jun 9, 2015)

Well, that's quite a turn from the 1 million women drivers the bozo wanted to bring onto the platform worldwide by 2020. How many remember the "Her turn to earn" campaign?


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## Jagent (Jan 29, 2017)

Eliminating labor only saves you money if you are paying a profitable wage. Drivers provide maintenance, fuel, cleaning and storage, all for less than $1.00 per mile. I have doubts that Travis can accomplish that on his own.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

uberdriverfornow said:


> Let's see how the Governor's attitude towards self-driving cars becomes as soon as one of them kills someone.


Human driven cars kill 1.2M people a year and they're still here. SDCs do _not_ have to be perfect to succeed. They only have to be better than us, perhaps significantly better, and that's a pretty low bar.



uberdriverfornow said:


> And let's keep in mind there has yet to EVER be a fully self-driving ride with no driver yet.


Come on dude, that line was crossed long ago:






By the way, I know you're going to hate to hear this so brace yourself, but SDCs have been giving rides to the public on open roads in the Netherlands since May 2016 so...maybe you're a little behind?








uberdriverfornow said:


> But they gotta keep the charade going to keep the investor money rolling in.


So, what you're telling us, with no evidence of course, is that almost every major tech and auto company in the world are conspiring with leading universities worldwide just to scam investors? Do you hear yourself?



Jagent said:


> Eliminating labor only saves you money if you are paying a profitable wage. Drivers provide maintenance, fuel, cleaning and storage, all for less than $1.00 per mile. I have doubts that Travis can accomplish that on his own.


Nope. Uber fares provide maintenance, fuel, cleaning, and storage. If they aren't, you shouldn't be Ubering.


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## Jagent (Jan 29, 2017)

We'll see Fanboy. I actually left out the fact that drivers also provide the main upfront investment - the car. SDCs mean that Travis absorbs all expenses associated with his scam. He no longer will have the luxury of being the middleman. I'll bet you $100, payable in 10 years, that it fails.

You see, all the people needed to clean, maintain, and service those millions of SDCs won't be private contractors. ...they'll be employees...Travis's employees....and they'll all get unemployment insurance and workers comp. ... and Travis will find out what the real world is like. It will be a rude awakening.

Heaven forbid, those new employees unionize. ...lol


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Jagent said:


> We'll see Fanboy. I actually left out the fact that drivers also provide the main upfront investment - the car. SDCs mean that Travis absorbs all expenses associated with his scam. He no longer will have the luxury of being the middleman. I'll bet you $100, payable in 10 years, that it fails.
> 
> You see, all the people needed to clean, maintain, and service those millions of SDCs won't be private contractors. ...they'll be employees...Travis's employees....and they'll all get unemployment insurance and workers comp. ... and Travis will find out what the real world is like. It will be a rude awakening.
> 
> Heaven forbid, those new employees unionize. ...lol


God you're so far behind. Volvo is providing uber's fleet. Learn up.

And no, there is no reason they would have to hire employees to clean or maintain the fleet because A) See above and B) they can hire ICs or companies and piece pay.


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## Jagent (Jan 29, 2017)

RamzFanz said:


> God you're so far behind. Volvo is providing uber's fleet. Learn up.
> 
> And no, there is no reason they would have to hire employees to clean or maintain the fleet because A) See above and B) they can hire ICs or companies and piece pay.


Keep believing the spin. Keep drinking the koolaid. They will either:

1. Be forced to raise rates
2. Continue to lose money and be forced to raise rates.

And, as soon as they raise rates, a company like Lyft or Juno steals all the business.

Let me ask you this - If I were to ask you, "Should I spend $40k on a new car to drive UberX or Pool?" ... what would you say? You'd say I'd be crazy to do that.

Yet, that's exactly what Travis, or Volvo or whoever, will be doing with SDCs, *if* they can get them built that cheaply. They cannot provide, fuel, maintain, clean and store these cars cheaper than we do.


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## ABC123DEF (Jun 9, 2015)

Uber will not continue in its current state. Too many dumb mistakes have been made and some major changes will come if this company is to survive. Even Uber's biggest fanboys have to recognize this.


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## heynow321 (Sep 3, 2015)

jagent, don't get caught up in ramz's insanity. He's completely delusional and lives in a grotesquely simplistic world. For example, that Wepod thing is a speed limited track-restricted "vehicle". It's not anything like a level 5 SDC but yet he still likes to make the comparison.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Jagent said:


> Keep believing the spin. Keep drinking the koolaid. They will either:
> 
> 1. Be forced to raise rates
> 2. Continue to lose money and be forced to raise rates.
> ...


Dude, _ALL of my costs_ of Ubering are paid by Uber now. Economies of scale dictate that large scale maintenance and repairs will be _less expensive_ than piecemeal. When you go to a mechanic, you're paying the mechanic _and _the business owner's profit _and_ retail on the parts. Uber, or more accurately Volvo, will only be paying the mechanic and wholesale for the parts.

Then add that these are electric which have 2-3 moving parts instead of the 2,000 in internal combustible engines and are _vastly _easier and cheaper to repair and require far fewer repairs. In fact, the technicians that maintain them will almost certainly only be part swappers, not actual mechanics.

Oh yeah, and you neglected that these vehicles will be provided at Volvo's _manufacturing cost_ and not retail.

Now move the 75%-80% cost of the driver to the gross profit. They will be starting with 4-5 times the revenue before fleet costs. They not only won't need to raise rates, they will definitely be lowering them.

You have officially exited reality in order to believe what you want.



heynow321 said:


> jagent, don't get caught up in ramz's insanity. He's completely delusional and lives in a grotesquely simplistic world. For example, that Wepod thing is a speed limited track-restricted "vehicle". It's not anything like a level 5 SDC but yet he still likes to make the comparison.


It's a self driving vehicle on the open roadway with human driven vehicles, bike, and pedestrian traffic. Does it have a driver? No, it doesn't nor does it have human controls. Is it giving rides requested through an app, it sure is. On a public road? Yep. All self driving criteria met.

I've never referred to it as level 5 or autonomous and never would. It's the naysayers who blindly claim they have to reach level 5 to take our jobs even when it's already happening and has been for almost a year.

Level 5 is meaningless. They don't need level 5 nor will they long after most of us drivers are gone. Self driving =/= autonomous.


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## Mars Troll Number 4 (Oct 30, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> Dude, _ALL of my costs_ of Ubering are paid by Uber now. Economies of scale dictate that large scale maintenance and repairs will be _less expensive_ than piecemeal. When you go to a mechanic, you're paying the mechanic _and _the business owner's profit _and_ retail on the parts. Uber, or more accurately Volvo, will only be paying the mechanic and wholesale for the parts.
> 
> Then add that these are electric which have 2-3 moving parts instead of the 2,000 in internal combustible engines and are _vastly _easier and cheaper to repair and require far fewer repairs. In fact, the technicians that maintain them will almost certainly only be part swappers, not actual mechanics.
> 
> ...


Sorry to burst your bubble...

We have pretty much concluding that TK will break ANY rule that he comes across and clean up the mess later,

More than likely Uber/Otto have based their self driving tech off R&D/design specs stolen from google.

Google can LEGALLY force uber/otto to start over from step one and LEGALLY keep them from using anything stolen from google.

Uber will have to go back to step 1 and throw out every piece of R &D they have ever generated based on googles hardware.

Uber's self driving system is a fraud.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Mears Troll Number 4 said:


> Sorry to burst your bubble...
> 
> We have pretty much concluding that TK will break ANY rule that he comes across and clean up the mess later,
> 
> ...


How is this relevant to my reply in any way?

If Uber used stolen data, I hope they get raped by Google in court. Will it matter though since Volvo, who will be providing the fleet, is developing the cars in a seperate program?


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## Mars Troll Number 4 (Oct 30, 2015)

RamzFanz said:


> How is this relevant to my reply in any way?
> 
> If Uber used stolen data, I hope they get raped by Google in court. Will it matter though since Volvo, who will be providing the fleet, is developing the cars in a seperate program?


Uhh.. it's volvo providing the cars, uber providing the self driving...

If volvo puts out self driving cars that work they can cut uber out of the equation..

Uber's self driving cars are a fraud...

Uber does not and will not have any self driving cars that they can use.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Mears Troll Number 4 said:


> Uhh.. it's volvo providing the cars, uber providing the self driving...
> 
> If volvo puts out self driving cars that work they can cut uber out of the equation..
> 
> ...


Seriously, you're going to cut out the partner that already has 80% of the US market?

And Uber is not ever getting near self driving on their own.


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