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Comment by easytiger | Hacker News Reader

I stopped using Uber in favour of black cabs (using Hailo) in London. For airport trips local cab firms are 1/4-1/3 of the price with a more reliable fulfilment time. (The app basically lies about how timely a driver can be, it says 5 minutes but when you hit book it says 15-20 minutes for me rather often).

The pricing is far too high. Only on one occasion out of a dozen did i get a luxury vehicle.

FYI Uber a base specification Mercedes E class is not a luxury vehicle. They are also usually not particularly clean and often with not a particularly competent driver.

I was having a bad day and needed to go from office->home->office->airport. I had to wait 40 minutes for a car (luckily i had thought of this in advance so that didn't bother me). The driver did the first trip then begged me to let him complete the fare there as he didn't want to go all the way to the airport. So I had to get out and book a new journey from scratch.

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> FYI Uber a base specification Mercedes E class is not a luxury vehicle

That's got to be the summit of conceit, to say an E class is not a luxury vehicle!

Wonder what you'd think of my golf :)

Perception of Mercedes is different in Europe than in the US. In Zurich, for example, Mercedes is probably the most common brand among normal taxis - some of them even S-classes with electronically adjustable black leather seats. I think Uber will have a hard time expanding into cities where the normal taxis already have a high standard.

Exactly, the cab company my employer uses here in Edinburgh is great - they have an excellent IVR system (when I phone their number, it knows who I am and asks if I want a taxi from my home address) or an iPhone app.

Cabs are always clean and drivers very polite - I've never had a problem with them for years and I use them for all my personal taxi usage as well.

I'm not sure what advantage Uber would have in this market.

Sounds like Uber is mostly capitalizing on the intense regulatory capture in the US taxi industry that allows cab companies to be horribly complacent about the customer experience. In places where cab companies are already competitive, Uber doesn't look so shiny.

Problems I've noticed with Uber time estimates in the US, add traffic and it really can slow things down.

-Car just passed a turn when I call it. -Car looks close, but really isn't. For example, its on a highway and you are a block over. -Misread on the direction the car is traveling, usually from signal interference.

Predictions, I don't know anyone at the company so this is what I expect they are doing. If they don't, a competitor will:

-Within 5 years we will start having driverless Ubers. -Service can scale and they plan on it, they have taken the start at the top of market and work down.

The thing that has kept me thinking is, by the time cars are driverless, will taxi cab medallions (in NYC and Hong Kong at least) go up in price because you don't need a driver, or will they be worthless?

It looks like Uber does not scale well. We see this all the time when employees are involved. The culture loses it's magic as the biz gets larger and most are just there for the paycheck.

With a premium business like Uber that will be a big problem. Plus those cabs aren't gonna stay shiny and new forever.

I feel really cheap promoting this sort of stuff but try anycabs.co.uk - it's a bidding system and so prices are consistently quite low. Also, I've also gotten decent cars, never had any trouble with people not showing up (even when I've gone for the cheapest bid, expecting crap cars). I've been in brand new Priuses, new BMWs and decent cars altogether (different companies and YMMV obviously but it's cheap). I've also had drivers really impress me by not letting a fully closed-down M25 slow down my transfer to the airport.

As a price point, I've always managed to go Docklands to Luton for under £50.

Check out UberX. 20-30% cheaper than most mini-cabs.

Whenever I've looked (in central London) there's been no UberX availability. Ended up using Hailo or Kabbee instead.

Uber London Lux vehicles are S-Class, 7 series or Jaguar. Only UberX is a Prius or cheaper vehicle.

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