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Comment by dopamean | Hacker News Reader

> The idea that services like Uber without the drivers would make car ownership obsolete drove those valuations.

Did investors really believe that? I don't know a single person who believed that years ago when the pre-IPO valuations were going through the roof. I maybe knew a few people who believed it was possible one day but not anytime soon. It's wild to me that so called sophisticated investors really believed that in the not too distant future uber would have a fleet of driverless vehicles shuttling people around.

FWIW, I don't believe we'll see anything like that in my lifetime (I'm 37). The last few years of development in this space, for me, have proven that it's a much harder problem than people thought and that the early big improvements in the tech gave people false hope.

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Supposedly, in some places, transport planners, who really should've known better, made decisions about mass transit projects on the basis that self-driving cars were coming any day now. If _they_ got it so wrong, why would investors do any better?

There was a weird period a while back where basically everyone except people who actually worked in the area seemed to believe the self-driving car was nigh.

My recollection of those cases is that those who believed mass transit was a boondoggle that no one uses were using the imminence of self-driving cars to argue against mass transit projects that they already opposed.

Most of those in charge of transit do not believe in transit. (in the US). Most politicians see transit as a way to shovel money into some special interest: they appoint a supported to lead transit as a way to reward help with no concern if they appoint someone who will be good.

I don't know who actually believed it, or if it had any real impact on investors, but it seemed to be a common comment on self driving threads on HN ~5 years ago that instead of ownership, there would just be idle fleets of cars that you would summon from, and you'd simply subscribe to a vehicle service as a monthly cost.

I still see that all the time. I don't think it will happen: there are too many advantages to owning your own car.

>Did investors really believe that?

They didn't. I don't know what OP is talking about. Uber's self-driving initiatives were always a moonshot.

You say that like Musk didn't say a whole litany of things, including "By 2019, it will be financially irresponsible NOT to own a Tesla, because it will be paying for itself and making you money in your sleep as a Robotaxi."

Yeah - Musk says a lot of idiotic things, but even with that I maintain that these kinds of statements is not what drove Tesla (crazy) valuation.

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