This is thrown out all the time. How exactly does this save them?
Are they going to spend billions to purchase and maintain a fleet of their own taxis? Are they going to be paying people to "borrow" their self-driving cabs? Something else?
I just don't see how this suddenly changes the equation in a meaningful way. People aren't going to spend more for a self-driving ride and the costs can only go down so much.
Because self driving cars, while expensive, are still significantly cheaper that employing drivers. Furthermore, it could be argued that you need less self driving cars than cars with drivers, as they never need to take breaks, and can work all hours of the day. It would also drastically decrease ubers cost of entering new cities - previously they relied on driver incentives, this flattens the variation in cost greatly.
> Because self driving cars, while expensive, are still significantly cheaper that employing drivers.
Are they? How much does a self driving car go for in today's market? And does your calculation include the fact that a driver comes with free car, maintenance, fuel, etc.
Even if the numbers do add up, SDVs aren't about to roll out next week. Remember how close we were to VR for about 30 years?
But they're not paying for cars now. Buying a fleet of self-driving cars to cover all the cities they are in will require many billions of capital investment.
> It would also drastically decrease ubers cost of entering new cities
Entering a new market will require buying hundreds of cars + investing in facilities to maintain those cars.
>This is thrown out all the time. How exactly does this save them?
They know that their days of paying drivers less than a living wage and no benefits are numbered. They have two options: Raise ride prices to pay drivers more, or get rid of drivers altogether. They're betting on the latter. The costs go down dramatically because buying cars is a one-time capital expense, rather than an ongoing cost of doing business. (Yes cars require maintenance but this is still cheaper than paying drivers.)
> This is thrown out all the time. How exactly does this save them?
I agree 100%.
There's a lot of evidence that self-driving cars will be MORE expensive that paying people to drive their own cars. Particularly since the R&D costs are just prohibitive.
With prices lower than all other taxi services they will soon be a monopoly. Also, lower prices can lead to many people not owning a car anymore, which will be an even larger market.
This is thrown out all the time. How exactly does this save them?
Are they going to spend billions to purchase and maintain a fleet of their own taxis? Are they going to be paying people to "borrow" their self-driving cabs? Something else?
I just don't see how this suddenly changes the equation in a meaningful way. People aren't going to spend more for a self-driving ride and the costs can only go down so much.