# Uber Needs Autonomous Vehicles - Desperately



## Maven (Feb 9, 2017)

_*Uber has NEVER made a profit, not since day one.
Uber will NEVER make a profit with the current business model.
Riders pay only 75% of the cost.*_

This is from Bloomberg News and some very smart financial people, not me. Yet, very wealthy people keep pouring capital into Uber. Despite all of the above, Uber is valued at over $50 Billion (with a B).

I want to put forth a more comprehensive analysis. I know that a lot of what is here has been mentioned before in this forum. Yet most people, both drivers and riders, seem to be completely unaware of these facts. How can this make sense and be understood?

Uber has a virtual monopoly in market share, both drivers and riders. Their market share is growing every day, despite the best efforts of Lyft and other competitors. That's not just in the USA, but around the world, except for China. Building market share is Uber's main focus and goal. Uber has been wildly successful. Secondary, of course, is to slow their rate of financial losses. To understand why Uber does something that seems strange, you need only remember these two goals.

Uber lost $1.2 Billion the first half of 2016.
Uber lost $800 million the 3rd quarter of 2016 on 1.7 billion net revenue.​
_*Uber is betting on autonomous vehicles to make their current business model profitable.*_

Autonomous vehicles (sometime called Robo-cars) are the future. Companies like Ford Motors are investing billions to make them a reality. Autonomous vehicles are being tested today in the USA. Public resistance to new technologies and the resultant political unpopularity may be overcome will enough time and money.

Both Rideshare (including Uber) and Taxi drivers will be largely replaced by the new technology of autonomous vehicles. For once, Rideshare and Taxi drivers will be united in advocating resistance to autonomous vehicles. That resistance may delay implementation, but ultimately they will lose. Only Limo drivers may survive because the rich will pay for the status of a human driver.



circle1 said:


> ... the evidence and subjective consensus is that SDC are not currently practical in wide-spread use. Too many problem and hurdles to clear. For the meantime, it's all so much window dressing & hype. Like a shiny object that dazzles a toddler.


Not FIFY (Fixed It For You) because there is nothing broken ... TODAY ... I agree completely with what circle1 said. However, ...

TOMORROW, not so much ...

Too many powerful people have invested too much money already (Billions) for this to work. Each of the many valid, confirmed problems and hurdles you cite with autonomous vehicles has a solution that requires only time and more money to implement.

The politics will be a more difficult hurdle than the technology. However, there is no comparable countervailing force that might do more then delay the inevitable. Rideshare drivers are just beginning to get organized and have little or no political powers. Taxi drivers are organized into the NTWA (NYTWA in NYC), but are focused on fighting rideshare drivers today, not their long-term problem, autonomous vehicles. Even when they finally combine forces because of shared interests, it will be too little, too late. Their political power will be dwarfed by the powers committed to the success of autonomous vehicles.

It will not be quick, perhaps 5 to 10 years, perhaps more, but autonomous vehicles will become viable, both technologically and politically. Rideshare and Taxi drivers will all become workers displaced by another new technology.

Sorry to be so gloomy, but that is my analysis. So if you want long term financial security then save your $$ to invest in the eventual Uber IPO. Once SDC are practical, Uber will finally become profitable then the initial investors will do an IPO to cash in on their investment.


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## circle1 (Sep 17, 2016)

True that, Maven.

So, here we are. The clock's ticking. How will we prepare for the next upheaval & societal shift?

My 2¢, employee-owned businesses are (is?) the future. Of course, that requires trust and access to lots of resources (_e.g._, expertise).


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## Jermin8r89 (Mar 10, 2016)

circle1 said:


> True that, Maven.
> 
> So, here we are. The clock's ticking. How will we prepare for the next upheaval & societal shift?
> 
> My 2¢, employee-owned businesses are (is?) the future. Of course, that requires trust and access to lots of resources (_e.g._, expertise).


Full time employees get beneifits and re education. The question is what will uber do to make a smooth transition into giveing there drivers more opportunity in an automation world? Unemployment?schooling money? Any assistance?. We "IC" so we dont fall into that category


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## circle1 (Sep 17, 2016)

Jermin8r89 said:


> Full time employees get beneifits and re education. The question is what will uber do to make a smooth transition into giveing there drivers more opportunity in an automation world? Unemployment?schooling money? Any assistance?. We "IC" so we dont fall into that category


No, you have to plan for your own redundancy. The Nanny State is breaking up. Democracy has failed. Look for small pockets of economic prosperity along with newly-established cultural norms. If you don't conform, move on to another "state" that suits your beliefs.


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## Jermin8r89 (Mar 10, 2016)

circle1 said:


> No, you have to plan for your own redundancy. The Nanny State is breaking up. Democracy has failed. Look for small pockets of economic prosperity along with newly-established cultural norms. If you don't conform, move on to another "state" that suits your beliefs.


 U have kids in school who now who r freshmen they gonna get into work force with a big population thats shifting around as automation keeps dissplaceing people. The entry level work is slipping away soon. Theres already a mix of older people working in the entry level feild so u gonna dissplace the older guy or that kid whos graduateing is gonna have to wait and wait just to get any job.

Retirement keeps going up too i think its 68 right now as people r liveing longer.

My grandma is 73 years and she does uber she lives off of social security too and with my grandfather haveing dimancha she needs uber to keep paying for his meds and hospital service.

My father hes been a CNC machieanist for +35 years and hes seeing manufactureing getting tooken over by automation so hes getting his CDL. Then after that then what? Hes already struggling to keep my my mom and brother afloat with my mom haveing servere post dramitic stress dissorder and my brother haveing severe autisum.

Im working 70 hours a week with 2 jobs to keep myself afloat and to help my fam too. "I thought technoligy would help out" what my grandmother said but more technoligy has made it to where shes working more then ahe ever did.


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## circle1 (Sep 17, 2016)

Jermin8r89 said:


> U have kids in school who now who r freshmen they gonna get into work force with a big population thats shifting around as automation keeps dissplaceing people. The entry level work is slipping away soon. Theres already a mix of older people working in the entry level feild so u gonna dissplace the older guy or that kid whos graduateing is gonna have to wait and wait just to get any job.
> 
> Retirement keeps going up too i think its 68 right now as people r liveing longer.
> 
> ...


I feel for you, Jermin.

I read an article today about an ACLU lawsuit against (I think) the city Santa Anna, CA for "imprisoning" homeless people and cutting off their access to water and medical. I really don't know the facts behind this story, but we can safely assume there IS such a lawsuit pending. The story talks about how the city & police allow/do not harass homeless camps where drug abuse is known to exist. But they shut-down and evicted a homeless encampment which had a zero-tolerance policy for drug use, helped people get jobs, had running water, and had begun a garden. Our society is sick.


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## heynow321 (Sep 3, 2015)

Does anybody here remember how many billions were invested in the tech sector back in 1999? Or how about in 2008 when Warren Buffett put in hundreds of millions of dollars into Exxon Mobil stock only to sell it a few months later at a loss? 

Remind me, how much money did Rupert Murdoch pay for MySpace.com and how much is it worth today?

Just because there's a lot of foolish money flowing into the sector doesn't mean it's a good investment. If you do just half an hour of research into the field you will quickly realize they are nowhere close to making a level five autonomous car that could replace human drivers. Not even close and won't be for a very long time. 

All Uber has done is undercut the taxi market by subsidizing rides via their stupid investors money. It's not sustainable which is why no taxi company has ever grown to a nationwide scale or larger. The economies of scale just aren't there which is why nobody has done it. 

Uber has not reinvented economics. They are just in overhyped tech company just like Amazon is which is currently trading at around 175 times price earnings


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Maven said:


> Uber has NEVER made a profit, not since day one.


Which is not the same as saying they couldn't. They could be profitable tomorrow if they chose to be.



Maven said:


> Uber will NEVER make a profit with the current business model.


See above.



Maven said:


> Riders pay only 75% of the cost.


Because of expansion, that could change tomorrow if they chose.



Maven said:


> Uber is valued at over $50 Billion (with a B).


$68B last I looked.



Maven said:


> Their market share is growing every day


Exactly. And that's their goal in their pricing and spending.



Maven said:


> Public resistance to new technologies and the resultant political unpopularity may be overcome will enough time and money.


There is no public resistance. In a recent poll 25% said they would absolutly ride in an SDC and 50% said they might.



Maven said:


> Only Limo drivers may survive because the rich will pay for the status of a human driver.


The rich aren't stupid. They will take the safest way just as we all will.



Maven said:


> Too many powerful people have invested too much money already (Billions) for this *NOT *to work.


FIFY

Hundreds of billions, and yes, you are correct.



Maven said:


> The politics will be a more difficult hurdle than the technology.


The politics is allready on the path of clearing the way. The feds have already put out guidelines which most states will follow.



Maven said:


> Their political power will be dwarfed by the powers committed to the success of autonomous vehicles.


True.



Maven said:


> It will not be quick, perhaps 5 to 10 years


Probably 1-3 years. Musk is saying next year and most are saying 2020.



heynow321 said:


> Does anybody here remember how many billions were invested in the tech sector back in 1999?


Yes, I made a nice piece of change. Many of those tech companies are still market leaders.



heynow321 said:


> Or how about in 2008 when Warren Buffett put in hundreds of millions of dollars into Exxon Mobil stock only to sell it a few months later at a loss?


Buffett's bottom line? "_We thought we might have other uses for the money,"_ he said, and was quick to add, _"Exxon Mobil is a wonderful company."_

By the way, if he had stayed in he could have made a nice profit.



heynow321 said:


> Remind me, how much money did Rupert Murdoch pay for MySpace.com and how much is it worth today?


Um, when Murdoch bought MySpace, it was the largest social site in the US. Facebook lost $250,000,000 that year. It was Murdoch who crashed MySpace.

_Mr Murdoch later admitted that News Corp had "screwed up MySpace in every way possible" and learned lots of "valuable, expensive lessons" in the process._



heynow321 said:


> Just because there's a lot of foolish money flowing into the sector doesn't mean it's a good investment. If you do just half an hour of research into the field you will quickly realize they are nowhere close to making a level five autonomous car that could replace human drivers. Not even close and won't be for a very long time.


Just because you don't grasp the state of the technology or have a realistic timeline for deployment, that doesn't make the vast majority of experts wrong. You've offered no reason for anyone to take your word over almost every major tech and auto company in the world.

By the way, for SDC TNCs, you don't need level 5, level 4 will do as long as you restrict them to mapped areas, keep them out of very heavy weather for now, and have remote backup humans if they get stuck. In other words, in major metropolitan areas, our bread and butter. And no, they are actually very close. You must be reading posts here and taking them seriously. 1-3 years from introduction and then a title wave of new models in the few years following. Numerous experts are predicting there will be no more human driven car manufacturing after 2025



heynow321 said:


> All Uber has done is undercut the taxi market by subsidizing rides via their stupid investors money.


Not at all true. They have created a whole new market of riders that didn't use taxis regularly before. I've used taxis a handful of times in my life and Uber all the time.


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## circle1 (Sep 17, 2016)

RamzFanz said:


> Probably 1-3 years. Musk is saying next year and most are saying 2020.


NOT. There's way too many variables in the roadway that will stop a SDC. I'm talking large-scale here, not some five-square mile practice space.

. . . And where's the fully-functional model right now? Where does it exist?


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

circle1 said:


> NOT. There's way too many variables in the roadway that will stop a SDC. I'm talking large-scale here, not some five-square mile practice space.
> 
> . . . And where's the fully-functional model right now? Where does it exist?


Waymo _alone_ is in what, 5 cities? They probably have many hundreds of square miles already for testing. Google and others are doing widescale mapping right now. We're talking major metropolitan areas all across the nation. This won't be small scale for long.

There are no variables in the roadway a SDC can't be programmed to handle. Any that it couldn't would be overcome by a remote driver for now.

Fully functional? Waymo is more than likely fully functional now to at least level 4 or 4.5. We won't know until their next report. That's all they need to go live. In their last full report they went 7 straight months without a driver needing to take over. That was over a year and 2 million miles of testing ago. In the next 2 years the miles driven will be almost 5 times as many as they are adding 200 more vehicles. That's not counting the millions of simulator miles a week they drive which are just as valid to a computer as real world.


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## ChortlingCrison (Mar 30, 2016)

circle1 said:


> NOT. There's way too many variables in the roadway that will stop a SDC. I'm talking large-scale here, not some five-square mile practice space.
> 
> . . . And where's the fully-functional model right now? Where does it exist?


ramzfranz is in dream land.. Like you said too many variables, how would the SDC react if someone flipped him/her the finger or was honked at.


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## circle1 (Sep 17, 2016)

ChortlingCrison said:


> ramzfranz is in dream land.. Like you said too many variables, how would the SDC react if someone flipped him/her the finger or was honked at.


I dunno CC, he provided pacifics, now anyone on this forum who says SDCs ain't gonna happen soon has got some 'splainin' to do.


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## Polomarko (Dec 20, 2016)

What a stupidity! To the person who wrote this article. Uber drivers are the owners of Uber fleet.
Uber is cheap only because they rip of the drivers. Uber will never dominate any market and be profitable with
self driving cars.


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## RamzFanz (Jan 31, 2015)

Polomarko said:


> What a stupidity! To the person who wrote this article. Uber drivers are the owners of Uber fleet.
> Uber is cheap only because they rip of the drivers. Uber will never dominate any market and be profitable with
> self driving cars.


Volvo is providing the fleet of SDCs and possibly other companies too. Uber's profit will quadruple before Volvo takes their cut. I'm sure you're dead wrong.

The only real risk to Uber right now is Wamo, Lyft, or some unnamed competitor beating Uber to SDCs by years and mopping up the market. With Google's backing, Waymo could certainly do it.


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## uberJAW817 (Feb 23, 2017)

What is people are allowed to buy the SDCs and rent them to companies like Uber when they are not using them? That is what I see happening. There may even be a whole new breed of Rideshare apps happening because of it. SDC owners can sign up, set their rates, allow reservations, and send the car out to serve them. I like the idea of automatic money myself. This is putting capital to work while you sleep.


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## Maven (Feb 9, 2017)

uberJAW817 said:


> What is people are allowed to buy the SDCs and rent them to companies like Uber when they are not using them? That is what I see happening. There may even be a whole new breed of Rideshare apps happening because of it. SDC owners can sign up, set their rates, allow reservations, and send the car out to serve them. I like the idea of automatic money myself. This is putting capital to work while you sleep.


You assume that the few people rich enough to buy a personal SDC will want their expensive new toys sullied by the "unwashed masses" (us). What happens when the shiny new toy returns with dings or unidentifiable bodily fluids?

On the other hand, if you are correct then more potential competitors.


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## uberJAW817 (Feb 23, 2017)

There are plenty of people out there looking to deploy capital on ventures. Getting sullied happens. It all depends on the potential for ROI.


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## Jermin8r89 (Mar 10, 2016)

If robots r suppose to do everything then noone should work and everythings free. Every person should have a smarthouse with a yard to play outside too


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