Quote:
Originally Posted by aling
Driveless cars in 10 years or so will drive down the cost of Uber rides by perhaps 80%. This will make it uneconomical to own cars giving the entire market to Uber and Lyft.
There is so much to unpack here that's dumb/wrong.
Firstly, Uber drivers in many places currently make about the cost of depreciation. Given that, how do you see an 80% cost reduction taking out the driver????
Secondly, why do you think Uber and Lyft will own this market? They won't get there first on autonomy and whoever does will set the terms, especially given, as you note, "80% cost reductions". Why would they give some cucks with an app a good portion of their revenue rather than have their own app? GM for example currently has an internal ride hailing app for autonomous point-to-point anywhere in the city, which its employees use. That will go public shortly. Google has their own app for their early rider autonomous taxi test program in Phoenix.
Why would some hopelessly non-sticky, no-barrier-to-entry app makers take over autonomous taxis? There's zero reason to think they would. Avis is more likely than Uber and Lyft to do well out of autonomous driving since they have the size and operations needed to care for autonomous fleets. Uber is a bunch of bad tempered software nerds with no capital who get drivers to do everything for them (cleaning, warehousing, fueling) and no real operations.
Last edited by ToothSayer; 07-02-2019 at 03:44 AM.