I feel like Uber became a gamble on self driving technology. It will be interesting to see if they can last long enough to see it happen. I could see them running out of money before that happens but I kind of hope they make it.
It'd make way more sense for an existing car company to build the features into the car and let the owner rent out the car when they don't need it. (Telsa, GM/Cruise).
Another option is to simply build the best technology and use ungodly piles of money to finance building the cars. Only Google or Apple could really do this.
Uber could raise the capital for it on the stock market. The problem that I see is that Uber doesn't have the technology.
In a world where self driving cars are a commodity, Uber's brand could be an advantage. But in reality, by the time Uber gets access to the technology the market has already been taken by others.
So you have an asset--your car--that let's just assume you're fine with it being something economical to drive and you don't need to keep a bunch of personal stuff in it. Now you rent it out.
So you're in the single vehicle fleet management business. Your asset depreciates mostly on a per mile basis. (Not entirely but a good first approximation.) Say 50 cents a mile cost (including fuel). EV eventually brings this down but who knows what incremental hardware will be required for autonomy.
So two possible outcomes here.
One is that reimbursement costs drop to near operating cost. Some people will want to borrow from their future selves or will figure that their costs are enough below the average to make it work. In any case, it's not a great deal for the car owner.
The other is that reimbursement costs somehow embed a nice profit for the car owner. In this case, why on earth wouldn't the sort of companies that manage car fleets today get into the business, especially given that they can do things like maintenance less expensively than an individual.
Like if you have a kid and drive your kid to places in your car then you probably leave loads of kid stuff in your car, and if the kid spill something you probably don’t worry too much about cleaning it to pristine state immediately. But imagine after every school run or activity or playdate you had to valet your car immaculate so strangers could use it. No one will do this.
And with that exclusivity comes the right to personalize your experience, from features to things for your kids to bumper stickers to blasting your music rather than having to ask the driver for another station or listen to your music on air pods.
The luxury of owning your own car may not appeal to everyone, but I do not see car shares and ride shares replacing cars for everyone at this time, it would take a major cultural shift and then several generations to age out of the market and die off before it ceases to be an economic factor.
The other problem is that people would have to stop seeing cars as a status symbol. A not insignificant portion of women I know think it's hot if a guy has a cool/fast/whatever car. That will be harder to change.
IMO the fantasy of car sharing is naive and I'd even say it's counterproductive for the supposed goals. Just a few bits to consider:
- empty cars are going to drive a lot of junk miles. More resources to be burned, more wear on cars.
- car-sharing companies will try to keep brand-new fleets. Reliability, image and whatnot. What are we going to do with used-but-drivable cars?
In a lot of couples, people still own their "own" cars, keep their stuff in them, customize them for specific uses (am I going to get an Uber with kayak cradles?), and so forth. Even if the finances worked out, there's no way that I'm dumping my vehicle for a generic shared car.
The problem with your logic is the connection to Uber. Uber doesn't control the cars their drivers use. Sure they can set restrictions but they never collect actual data that is useful for self-driving. The only data Uber collects is when and where people want to travel. Google & Apple both have this dataset (probably superior) through their map apps.
The real data gathering will come in the way Tesla does. Gather data from real-time drivers by putting the necessary sensors in cars you sell.
Maybe Uber could force their drivers to install kits but I doubt it. Self-driving cars will emerge over time as new features in cars you buy. This is already happening (ie brake assist). You'll then just get updates to your car when new features become available.
There's a pretty good talk about the future self-driving cars here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwcYp-XT7UI
What's going to happen and is already happening is cars will offer certain self-driving features. Things like lane-keeping, brake assist, highway driving. Car companies will also put in all the necessary sensors to collect training data. Then provide over the air updates. Tesla & GM(Cruise) are already doing this.
There's not really a way for Uber to get to level-5 first and at that point, why build a kit that integrates with your old Honda to give it lane-keeping?
The only dataset Uber has is a general sense of where and when people want to travel. Google & Apple probably have much better data through their map apps. They both also have an ungodly amount of money to both acquire the best researchers and create & distribute these kits.
In my opinion, self-driving cars are a race between auto companies and these cash-flush tech giants. Uber/Lyft/Didi all don't really have a chance.
The auto companies and their suppliers like Bosch. And, if Apple, for example, were to come up with a really good system for autonomous driving or a subset thereof, don't you think they would be happy to sell it to automakers who already buy a huge number of component systems. After all, they already do with CarPlay. (Which is better than any automaker system I've used.)
Are they going to own and maintain an absolutely massive fleet of self-driving cars which they can’t afford? If they’re leasing self-driving cars from the owners, you’re right back where you started, paying people to use their cars. Or is the idea they somehow figure out self-driving technology, license it to Ford or whoever, and then shut down the whole taxi business?
But that certainly does not explain why Uber would try their hands at developing self-driving tech themselves (or why the company should be excessively valuable)