In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. Friedrich Nietzsche
“My reply was that we don’t need the public acceptance of autonomous vehicles at first,” Lutz said. “All we need is acceptance by the big fleets: Uber, Lyft, FedEx, UPS, the U.S. Postal Service, utility companies, delivery services.”
Simple economics will drive the change because automakers will cater to their biggest customers. Many regular cars will disappear because parts and maintenance for them will no longer be available.
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“We could hold Google and Facebook and all those big multinationals accountable; we could make sure that people; like those who are currently ‘voluntarily’ contributing their data to pump up companies’ profits are given something that is adequate to support their livelihoods in exchange,” Fuller said.
Fuller’s idea makes a lot of sense because most of those companies’ values come from the data they collect and disseminate. Figuring out how to charge a tax on that data will be difficult because much of its value is theoretical.
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Singapore is only the latest in a growing number of congested cities to try and restrict vehicles. London is planning a £10 ($13.17) charge for older vehicles, while Paris has banned many older vehicles completely, The Guardian reported
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FedEx benefits because it is still Walmart’s delivery service of choice for online orders. Walmart’s push to attract new rural, middle-class and upper-class customers will benefit FedEx because those customers rarely go near Walmart stores. An example of this push was the purchase of the men’s clothing site Bonobos which sells mostly online to males that hate to shop.
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News stories did not say how Uber’s new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will react to the situation. Although he certainly has his work cut out for him, a major job for Khosrowshahi will be to figure out a way to get rid of former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and his sleazy associates.
Uber survived failure in China, but the debacle in the UK might be too much. One thing is clear, Uber will no longer be the world’s most valuable unicorn.
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A leaderless Uber with its value destroyed will be a natural acquisition target.
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“If we assume that Waymo can grow to 1% of global miles driven by 2030 (based on a fleet of three million cars each driving 65,000 miles a year) and that Waymo can generate on average ~$1.25 in revenue per mile driven, it implies a $70 billion Waymo enterprise value,” Nowak wrote. “More miles/year and revenue/mile could lead to an enterprise value of $140 billion.”
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Uber’s fare structure deliberately shortchanges drivers a lawsuit filed in US District Court by driver Sophano Van alleges.
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Hard to say, but after this deal, Uber is behaving more and more like a hedge fund company or a venture capital firm. It uses its core transportation business to generate cash then reinvests that cash in other ventures.
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Instead of being the cutting edge in transportation, Uber might go down in the history books as the Enron of the 2010s. Remember, Enron, like Uber, was supposed to be run by The Smartest Guys in the Room.
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