This really is the endgame for both Uber and Lyft. IIRC, Uber did $16B last year in revenue and paid something like $13B to drivers. Self driving vehicles will turn their current breakeven/loser business models into massive cash cows.
I believe so too, but from a slightly different angle: I believe self-driving vehicles will literally mean the end for both Uber & Lyft (and they only accelerate their fate by investing into it).
To understand why: their inherent value is their ability to match human drivers with customers. They both do such a good job at it, that the switching costs between the 2 apps are quite low (first sign of weak competitive advantage).
Now, take away the difficult problem of finding human drivers at the right place and the right time. You now have self-driving cars that make no mistakes, have no scheduling issues, do not get tired etc. It’s way easier to fullfil demand. But, you’re not the only one working on this problem. Google, Tesla, (probably Apple too) are all actively working on the same problem. And they probably have 10X the computing/engineering/cash/data resources to solve this problem.
What are Uber/Lyft left with? A fancy app with a button (which they have already proven to easily clone). Not only that, they also have to compete with the native operating systems (and future devices) that the big corps control. They don’t even own their maps!
So yes, in 2023, you will probably be able to order a Level-5 self driving vehicle to your doorstep with a wink of your half robotic eye, but it will not be Uber or Lyft.
The way I see it, Lyft and Uber are already "big corps", and there are likely several logistic concerns that give Lyft/Uber a major head start on Google despite Google's alleged software superiority. However, I don't see Google releasing a massive self driving fleet in San Francisco and simultaneously capturing significant market share overnight.
Tesla on the other hand has hundreds of thousands of cars on the road and is rapidly on their way to 1M cars. Data won’t be as raw and abundant, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t potentially very useful none the less.
Not sure how close this puts them in the race.
Simply putting more SDCs on the road does not guarantee they will focus on the data they need.
Agree completely
It’s not just cash. Who has been building cars with smart sensors for more than 10 years? Who has self-driving cars on the road already? Who has factories to scale this up to a level that’s required to build an enormous fleet to replace all existing cars? It doesn’t even come close.
It may (read: will and has) take longer than they wished, but they aren't in anywhere near the danger of going under as they were with, say, the original Roadster, so this is just a matter of time, in my opinion.
The danger comes in the fact that electric cars are ultimately fairly simple to make (although Tesla does a particularly good job at it), and if their competitors just got their act together, Tesla would have a tough time. But in my opinion, as long as they're the only ones with a really good charging network (the others are both much smaller and much slower... and the few stations that aren't slow require an upgraded car), they have a significant head start on their competitors.
Production bottleneck will eventually clear. But having demand exceed supply is really, REALLY good for Tesla's business as it gives them access to interest-free capital (from reservations) and the reservations also show the existence of sufficient demand to justify financing continued expansion. So, Tesla keeps coming out with new products even before the previous bottlenecks have been cleared in order to maintain the state of having demand greatly exceed supply.
And these new products usually share a technology core, i.e. battery modules and electronics, thus allowing them to traverse as far down the learning curve as is possible, which is a multiplicative effect that improves every other product. Using larger batteries than you might think strictly necessary only amplifies this effect while giving them a quality and performance advantage over their competitors.
Tesla will also have an advantage in their charging network of having cheaper electricity with faster charging than anyone else. The Semi product offers 7 cents per kWh, which is lower than residential rates just about anywhere AND is ultra fast-charging. So assuming they can meet that rate, Tesla will have a large advantage in logistics costs even compared to other electric self-driving providers.
I think GP was being a bit hyperbolic, but I think (but don’t know for sure) Tesla might have 10x the telemetry data. Uber could pass them up though very rapidly if they made some changes to how drivers use phones and what data they collect (collecting video and accelerometer / gyro data for example).
Side by side as of a few minutes ago.
> Uber owns their maps.
That seems rather definitive compared to:
> And where did I claim it does not currently use Google Maps?
Don’t say things in matter of fact form and then push the blame on the questioner when evidence is shown that your “fact” seems anything but.
Yes but that app is branded Uber/Lyft, and while building an app with a button is easy, when was the last time you tried searching Bing or DuckDuckGo because Google Search was returning nonsense?
There's also question of mindshare; getting people to install an app and create an account is difficult enough, never mind B2B business contracts, such as uberpool being a recognized WageWorks commuter benefit, that are business-y to replicate.
There have been many solid competitors (both hardware and software) to the iPhone, but there's still only one Apple.
"Let Uber drive you to work for free then pay you to use your car for the day. We'll cover the gas!"
"GM is happy to partner with Lyft to be the first self diving car! GM Good. GM Hip"
To signal to passengers that you won’t record them during the ride, give the cameras nice red LEDs when in operation, and be open about what you do.
I doubt this would even be a concern. Many Uber/Lyft drivers already record interior and exterior views for the duration of every ride. And I don't see anything wrong with that. Hell, think about:
"The rider after you reported damage to the car that you didn't report. Therefore you did it and are responsible for paying for it."
"Where's your proof? Maybe I just didn't notice the damage and it was the rider before me -- it's not my job to inspect your cars. Or maybe the rider after me damaged the car -- possibly even on purpose -- and then blamed me."
They'd be foolish not to record every single ride, from multiple angles if possible.
I am thinking like a public transit subway in New York. We cannot have anything you can't pressure wash.
However, that also brings up the problem of traffic congestion and automation (as well as comfort and ergonomics?). Can we automate the process of sanitizing a car? Will passengers accept (cold) plastic and aluminum surfaces everywhere?
You can’t do hundreds of millions of dollars in raises forever without some proof of progress (or maybe you can if SoftBank is willing to pour money in for a decade).
At some point, someone is going to be left holding the bag when it’s evident that the last 20% is the hardest part (but mandatory for level 5 service).
Going really extreme: in a car accident in a somewhat remote area, the driver might be able to get an injured passenger out if the passenger stuck. Now a fully autonomous car, there is only passenger. Yes, for sure this is extreme and perhaps likely a dramatic scene only, but it is one of those edge cases we can’t cover in a self-driving car.
In theory, a self-driving car could watch for hand-based turn signals, just like a human driver could, and take those into account.
In practice, what someone signals is far less interesting than what they do, and all it does is provide hints for reaction time, which 1) a computer already wins at, and 2) a computer should always leave enough time for braking/stopping/etc anyway. A human driver should never make an assumption based on someone's turn signal that would lead to a crash if they don't do what they're signaling, and neither should a computer.
> What should the machine do when there is a dog standing in the middle of a street?
Don't hit it (stopping if necessary), and listen when the human in the vehicle says "stop" (or "call animal control", or any number of other reactions). The human in the vehicle should always be in control of the high-level actions, just not the moment-to-moment ones.
> Going really extreme: in a car accident in a somewhat remote area, the driver might be able to get an injured passenger out if the passenger stuck. Now a fully autonomous car, there is only passenger.
Not sure what scenario you're getting at here. If you mean a driver and passenger in the same vehicle, the same problem exists today with an injured driver.
Edit: Instead of just downvoting and moving on, why not actually formulate a response? Is there anything more empty than disagreement without the capacity to argue your case?
I think that becomes easier, though: in the case where no human in the car has control over what the car does, it's obviously the manufacturer's fault when something goes awry. Though if doing something like rapidly and repeatedly changing the car's destination and intentionally "confusing" it leads to a crash, that might shift blame to one of the passengers, which would be unusual.
I'd agree that if we aren't seeing better fatality numbers, people won't accept it -- but there's little to suggest that humans are a difficult target to beat. Especially in the US, where car-related fatalities are so numerous and much of the research and trials are being done.
Working out accountability for fatalities is already a hugely complicated process, involving an unhealthy number of law enforcement and legal personnel. The problem of identifying responsible party for a - as you put it - failed algorithm doesn't seem intractable, and certainly isn't a show-stopper.
Haven't voted either way on this thread, but I suspect your re-hashing of regular topics already resolved is the problem.
People have this weird psychological effect around control. They will accept higher failure rates if they believe (correctly or otherwise) that they have control over a situation. Or rather, they will believe that they can beat the statistics at least for themselves, as long as they believe they have control over the situation, and achieve a lower failure rate then the driverless car. In other words, "the higher failure rate might apply to the average person, but I'm above average".
It's related to faulty risk assessment: it's much more likely that you'll get in a car and die than it is that you'll be killed in a terrorist attack, but most people don't even think of getting into a car as all that risky, and yet we start drawn-out, unwinnable wars because people are afraid of terrorism. People believe that they personally won't die in a car crash because they have control of the situation and that they're a good driver, but they have no control over when or where a terrorist attack will take place, so it's somehow a worse threat.
That's why we have courts (and insurance).
Conventional vehicles kill people all the time, sometimes through provable manufacturer negligence. But we still have them.
Then since you have proven that you could try acquiring Uber and or Lyft at a fire sale price because they couldn't come up with a solution in time and get their data and logistics.