Uber isn't sure if it can 'remain a viable business' without building self-driving cars

[FrodosNewPet]

Uber isn't sure if it can 'remain a viable business' without building self-driving cars

http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-questions-future-of-being-a-viable-business-without-self-driving-cars-2017-4

Biz Carson | April 8, 2017

If you're to believe Uber's lawyers, the fate of the $69 billion company is tied up in one bid from an opponent trying to stop its work on self-driving cars.

Waymo, a subsidiary of Google-parent company Alphabet, sued Uber in February claiming it stole trade secrets. Weeks later, it filed a preliminary injunction to try to stop Uber's work on self-driving cars until the case resolves.

~ snip ~

Of course, many people question whether a company that's believed to be losing billions of dollars a year is a "viable" business to begin with. The six-year-old company hasn't yet figured out how to make humans in the drivers seat work as a profitable business, and it's also tackling everything from food delivery to vertical take off planes.

Discussions about the current viability aside, Uber continues to repeat that self-driving cars are "existential" to its future even though internally the company crowned 2017 the year of the driver (the human kind).

~ snip ~

[marybourg]

1. Yeah, well it was supposed to be a ride

sharing business , matching people who were going someplace anyway with people who needed a ride there and would help pay the freight. It wasn't supposed to become a job for any body and an informal taxi business. So, yeah, there's something fundamentally wrong with the business model - it's a Frankenstein monster.

[FrodosNewPet]

3. They want to kill taxis and public transit

But it is turning into a murder-suicide.

Travis Kalanick's ego is his worst enemy.

[Warpy]

4. And diddling people out of work with shaky technology

is only part of the problem with that company. It looks like they've been raking off extra money from drivers and passengers, alike.

And never mind the raging sexism in the company, itself.

My guess is that it's not going to last very long, period. They'll go under and then pop up as something else nonviable.

[Binkie The Clown]

2. WalMart unsure if it can remain viable unless driverless cars start to need groceries,

household goods, pharmaceuticals, and garden supplies.

With human customers left jobless, their only customer base will be the robots.

[DeminPennswoods]

5. If they can't make money now

with this model, they never will. They own no equipment (fleet of cars) and therefore have no maintence or replacement costs. They have few employees (drivers are independent contractors) so as to pay them no salary or benefits. All they basically have is an app and rating system along with the ability to set rules, prices and take a cut of driver fares.

If they use self-driving cars, their costs will increase as now they will own and be responsibile for keeping a large fleet of vehicles on the street.

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. Uber deserves to fail anyway

their whole business model is based on stealth deregulation and union busting. And they already aren't a viable business; they operate at a loss that their venture-capital backers are eating to undercut licensed, regulated, unionised taxi drivers.

[duncang]

7. Let's see what does this mean?

He can't make a company with very little overhead work. Maybe means he overpays/over extened his self to pay off mansions, planes and cars.

He has no clue as to what kind of a pain self driving cars would be. Having to clean up when the rider says to pull over because they are going to puke but the car doesn't. Not being able to offer the service unless he has a full service bay to gas and clean the cars out. Having to worry about graffiti and other abuse to the cars. Probably be worse then a men's public restroom. Having to worry about goofy gps programs that run the car on to roads that are in passable. (Flooding. Or like what happened to me. 2 gps units a phone and a stand alone unit sent me down a road which was pretty much just passable by a pick up or 4 wheeler.)