Posted on 05/25/2017 7:44:42 PM PDT by Lorianne
Ride-hailing will grow eightfold by then and could be five times the size of the taxi market, justifying the giant valuations, the report said. At $68 billion and $50 billion, respectively, Uber and Didi are the two most highly valued venture-backed companies, according to data firm CB Insights.
Central to the growth of this industry, according to Goldman Sachs, is the proliferation of self-driving cars.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
I thought prices were determined by drivers bidding against each other. Am I wrong?
Actually, even drivers in rural areas will be benefiting from self-driving vehicles. Roads may not even be necessary, as long as the terrain is smooth enough to ride on. GPS is not only for roads, as you might already be aware of.
Actually, even drivers in rural areas will be benefiting from self-driving vehicles. Roads may not even be necessary, as long as the terrain is smooth enough to ride on. GPS is not only for roads, as you might already be aware of.
I would bet quite a lot that it will never happen that fast. The technology will fail repeatedly in live testing in the suburbs and in the country. There will be numerous collisions and one-vehicle accidents in testing and the whole thing will be pulled back for more engineering work. That’s just my view on this as a former software developer. It will be interesting to see what actually happens in the testing phase.
The technology is actually a lot more advanced than you suspect. It’s already here. It’s only a matter of implementation and perhaps regulation and education.
You’ll never get people to give up driving their cars, trucks, and SUVs. People in the suburbs and the country will rebel against any legislators who vote for that kind of restrictive law. Any laws of that kind will be swiftly repealed in the next legislative session after those who enacted it are voted out of office.
;-)
Well when I see a car driving itself on a 2-lane highway out in the country where I live, then I’ll start to believe the technology actually works out here. So far I haven’t seen one.
That's the idea. It's why the owners are worth billions. And they'll eventually take the humans out of the loop. They won't be needed.
“I thought prices were determined by drivers bidding against each other. Am I wrong?”
Yes, you’re wrong on that.
Uber sets the prices. There is the base fee, then a per mile/per minute charge (just like a taxi).
Uber adds on a fee of their own on top of that (taxi does not).
Uber takes 25-30% of the fare (taxi company does not).
Uber will “surge price” (they warn the customer and increase fare by 2x, 3x, 4x, whatever when demand is high (taxi does and can not)
There is no bidding by drivers.
I have driven for Uber, for Lyft, as a taxi, and am a member of several driver groups. So I’m certain of these things.
When surging, Uber and etc. are usually more expensive than a taxi.
When not, they are usually cheaper. Even though Uber takes all that money out of the fee. Here in SF you can Uber pool downtown for, like, $5 (it varies sometimes). There is NO WAY that is all it “costs.” It is being heavily, heavily subsidized.
Our MUNI buses charge $2.50 now, or $2.75. A bus!! and the bus loses money and is heavily subsidized. . . you can only imagine the real cost of an Uber ride.
Taxis MAKE money. The drivers can earn a low wage, if they work hard, with no subsidies whatsoever. The real cost of a ride is truly reflected in the taxi fare.
The Uber drivers I met all - 100% - had no intentions of ever driving another mile for Uber. They looked at it as some extra cash in their pockets without thinking about what it cost them to make that cash.
But who is subsidizing the price of the rides...the ride-hailing company or drivers who own their own vehicles?
what happens when Über investors stop subsidizing each ride by about 50% ?
They have created software that is not programmed in the traditional sense.
It is a model of a brain that learns from doing and absorbing data. Exactly like a kid learning to drive.
The most advanced self- driving machines actually have zero code specifically related to driving. They simply watched humans drive and learned it. Then simply while driving itself and seeing others, the AI actually improves itself like a real driver.
As they get more common, the self driving vehicles (and other AI gadgets watching us work) will network and improve the collective global AI’s ability at an exponential rate. Until this all-seeing global system becomes far more intuitive than humans could ever imagine...
Actually you have it backwards. It is human drivers that cause gridlock due to drivers acting in their own selfish interest, constantly jockeying for advantage. With adequate spacing, constant speeds can be maintained, which allow much more volume on our highways.
This says more about the sorry state of the taxi industry than it does about ride-sharing. My assessment of the ride-sharing industry is that doesn’t seem to lend well to a highly profitable operation over time. Uber is basically an app for gypsy cabs, when you think about it.
You raise a good point there. I suspect a lot of people who drive for companies like Uber actually earn a lot less money than they think. You hear more and more stories all the time from former Uber drivers who left the business because they figured out that it simply wasn’t worth their time, effort and wear & tear on their vehicles.
Fully autonomous vehicle technology has existed for almost 60 years ... and has been "just about ready" for decades.
Self-Driving Cars Were Just Around the Corner -- in 1960
There are several reasons why self-driving cars may always be "just around the corner." The technology is the easy part. Legal issues and the simple economics of self-driving cars are the two biggest constraints.
Robo car technology is just a higher form of cruise control. It may have it’s place on the low traffic volume interstate environment but not universally. It would be nice to have an RV motor home drive itself while you slept in the back cruising down I-95. But general use, no way. The problem is FedGov will force nascent not ready for prime time technology on the people. They will eliminate the self driving option altogether forcing us to buy high tech, high maintenance robo cars. Driving is too expensive already.
On a converging track, automated accident prevention systems will become steadily more prescriptive. It may be that live drivers will sit idle in cabs most of the time, monitoring automated systems. At this point, the Teamsters will demand that drivers be paid like airline pilots, the jobs having largely converged.
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