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Comment by xbmcuser | Hacker News Reader

I have always argued with my friends that ai cars are more likely to kill uber than help as car manufacturers would start their own taxi service if the ai they have is not good enough would partner with waymo to stay in the market. Uber brings no value.

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Uber's value nowadays is that they have the infrastructure as a "connected" taxi service, and they have the users. But I guess that's not unique, Lyft has this too, and installing another taxi app or two is easy enough (or in the case of Google, they'll probably just integrate it to Google Maps -- I just realized why they've integrated Uber into Google Maps, so when they do that with Waymotaxi, no one can scream "anti-competitive move!").

Finding and vetting drivers will be the slightly harder task...

> I just realized why they've integrated Uber into Google Maps, so when they do that with Waymotaxi, no one can scream "anti-competitive move!

No, they integrated it so that Maps becomes the go-to point for users when they need a ride. That way, Google can snatch those users away when Waymo becomes available. The internet nowadays is all about being the "gatekeeper", and Google just wants to stay in that role.

Google will do the smart thing too. When Waymotaxi becomes available, they won't remove Uber as an option because that might be anti-competitive. But more relevantly, they wouldn't need to. Back of the envelope calculations say that a self driving cab would be 1/3rd of the cost. Show both in Google maps and let the people decide.

> Back of the envelope calculations say that a self driving cab would be 1/3rd of the cost.

I can hardly imagine taking the human drivers out of the equation will be that profitable. Right now, those drivers also do the labor intensive part of maintaining the fleet (gas/power, cleaning, repairs etc.). That part will stay with uber, lyft, google etc.

When car companies will become taxis, repairs will stop being profit centres, so the incentive will be to make more durable cars. Also electric cars will become more convenient with AI Taxi. Uber drivers don't use their cars 24/7. AI Taxi can deliver good between companies in the night. There is so much room for improvement. Right now it won't be 1/3 of the cost, but in the future AI Taxi will cost as much as public transport.

> When car companies will become taxis, repairs will stop being profit centres, so the incentive will be to make more durable cars.

I think manufacturing cost is a much stronger driver of shitty reliability than repairs being a profit center. After all, in the US dealer system the manufacturer isn't getting the profits, the dealer is.

> Uber drivers don't use their cars 24/7. AI Taxi can deliver good between companies in the night.

Keeping complex systems like that running constantly is difficult and expensive. It also wears said systems out faster and increases capital costs.

It also wears said systems out faster and increases capital costs

This is a good point. When you purchase capital equipment, your incentive is to keep it utilized as much as possible to maximize ROI. That means you're going to want your self-driving car fleet parked as little as possible because when they're parked, they're not making you money. Now that the cars are driven far more than regular passenger cars, their maintenance needs go up.

So either these cars will need to be built to the reliability needs of over-the-road trucks, which will greatly increase costs, or their maintenance will have to be more frequent, which is even more expensive.

They will move to electric cars as they have fewer moving parts so maintenance compared to petrol cars will be a lot less.

There are fewer moving parts in the engine and (perhaps) transmission. Same number of moving parts everywhere else. And remember it's a car: things you don't think of as "moving parts" are still in motion and will be degraded by vibration, dirt, road salt, etc.

> the manufacturer isn't getting the profits, the dealer is

Pardon my ignorance, but why doesn't the manufacturer open a dealership then?

This maybe US specific. Google "tesla can't sell directly to customers"

Yes, that's what I had in mind.

> they have the users

As you pointed out, this is a very fickle (price sensitive) group. Anecdata-ly, I can point to many who prioritize Lyft based entirely on personal price comparison history.

I just realized why they've integrated Uber into Google Maps

Google Ventures invested a large amount in Uber as well – I think they owned something like 5% last time I looked.

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