back to article Uber? Worth $40 BEEELLION? Hey, actually, hold on ...

The latest fundraising for Uber seems to peg the value just north of $40 billion. Which is, when you think about it, quite a hefty sum for what is, after all, just a registry of hireable people with cars. Sure, we're talking 50 countries now, 250 cities, but it's still about taxi rides. And it's a competitive market. There're …

  1. DainB Bronze badge

    Maintenance

    Driverless cars won't fuel themselves, wont clean and won't repair, so that means huge maintenance depots and competition with other driverless taxi companies (noone seriously thinks that Google will have some exclusive rights to technology, after all all these cars need be manufactured by someone who knows how to do it if/once driverless cars approved by legislators). That's a bit too far from being a company with bunch of cloud servers and an app.

    All Uber would have by then is customer base but so would taxi companies around the world.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Maintenance

      The cleaning bit was what first pinged in my head. Given the way people treat 'common' kitchen areas, public areas, etc. How long would a driverless car have to be on the road before any potential customer would open the door, see the state of the upholstery, discarded litter on the floor, etc. and just walk away?

    2. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      Re: Maintenance

      The cars will indeed refuel themselves. They'll be electric and if your Roomba can do it so can a robot car. They won't repair themselves but if your taxi driver repairs their car you probably should be looking for another taxi driver. (Why would a qualified mechanic be driving a taxi?) That just leaves the cleaning. A few low paid workers in a shed replacing hundreds of drivers is not exactly a massive financial burden. The first company to market with robot taxis will make a killing and one of the first corpses will be Uber.

      1. DainB Bronze badge

        Re: Maintenance

        Well, you'll need to buy or rent all these cars and it is still a loooong way from charging 20% off drivers fees for only providing an app.

        1. Tom Wood

          Re: Maintenance

          A significant chunk of taxi business happens in the small hours of Friday and Saturday nights (and other nights especially at this time of year). How is a driverless car going to fare in such circumstances?

          Will be fun when the first gang of drunken students manages to take a driverless car hostage and turn it upside down or something...

          1. Cliff

            Re: Maintenance

            I don't see cleaning as being a big deal - I'm sure initially driverless cars will need an account with positively identified users (like those by the hour car club thingies). Driverless car arrives at your home and is foul - press the 'it's foul' button, it'll go to get cleaned whilst a replacement makes its way over to you. Fueling - even if not electric vehicles, hit the reserve tanks and the car goes back to the same depot for a drink. Or a different depot, maybe local filling stations can have service agreements, hardly an insurmountable problem. If you can make a driverless car, you can imagine how to service it.

            Personally I'd be all over a driverless car hire especially of they've got a national range. I hate driving.

            1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: Maintenance

              "Driverless car arrives at your home and is foul - press the 'it's foul' button, it'll go to get cleaned whilst a replacement makes its way over to you. "

              It's Saturday morning. The next one is in the same condition as is the one after that. At some point it dawns on you that either you get in anyway or you miss your plane.

          2. Richard Taylor 2
            Happy

            Re: Maintenance

            See Total Recall (at least the first - never saw 2)

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "buy or rent all these cars "

          "Well, you'll need to buy or rent all these cars "

          Maybe.

          Or you could get a sweetheart deal with a car manufacturer, like Car2Go did for Smart cars for their "pick anywhere, drop off anywhere, pay by the minute" car rental service.

          That'd be Car2Go that pulled out of the UK earlier this year because they couldn't make any money. As not reported by The Register or indeed anywhere much. They're still operating elsewhere.

          [1] Actually in the case of Car2Go, it's more than a sweetheart deal - Daimler own Car2Go.

          1. DaveDaveDave

            Re: "buy or rent all these cars "

            "Or you could get a sweetheart deal with a car manufacturer, like Car2Go did for Smart cars for their "pick anywhere, drop off anywhere, pay by the minute" car rental service. That'd be Car2Go that pulled out of the UK earlier this year because they couldn't make any money"

            Er, the reason C2G flopped here is that they didn't follow that model here. It was 'pick it up at a specific point, drop it back to the same point, pay by the hour/day'. Utterly pointless, and no surprise it flopped.

            1. YetAnotherLocksmith Silver badge

              Re: "buy or rent all these cars "

              Plus, being Smart cars, they only have one seat left for passengers, kit, etc.Yes, "most journeys only have the driver" etc., but if you need an occasional car, sometimes you want it because you need to move a group of people, or even just your wife and child, at the same time.

      2. NumptyScrub

        Re: Maintenance

        They won't repair themselves but if your taxi driver repairs their car you probably should be looking for another taxi driver. (Why would a qualified mechanic be driving a taxi?)

        I think you overestimate the complexity of vehicle maintenance, and underestimate the background of some taxi drivers. Fixing a wonky Windows install can be more hassle than a full fluids change, and stripping and rebuilding an engine is actually quite straightforward, if time consuming.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Maintenance

          Mass production will result in millions of these things, one being off the road for a day or two won't make a jot of difference anyway.

          The thing about robot hordes is that there's always another one fresh off the production line.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Maintenance

        but will unions allow automatic refuelling or oppose it because it "eliminates jobs"?

        I guess it depends on which political party the robot taxi manufacturer donates his money to.

      4. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: Maintenance

        >How long would a driverless car have to be on the road before any potential customer would open the door, see the state of the upholstery, discarded litter on the floor, etc. and just walk away?

        Solution: Charge customers a fee if they leave the vehicle dirty or littered. This is easy - image recognition can be used inside the vehicle. The same system would allow lost property to be reunited with its owners - or even prevent customers from leaving their belongings in the first place.

        For cleaning: Automated cleaning at stations

      5. Anonymous Blowhard
        Terminator

        Re: Maintenance

        "The first company to market with robot taxis will make a killing"

        If they do, then that will be the end of robot taxis...

      6. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Maintenance

        They won't repair themselves but if your taxi driver repairs their car you probably should be looking for another taxi driver.

        Good luck with that. In the US, at least, apparently it's quite common for taxi companies to hire drivers as independent contractors and make them repair their own vehicles.

    3. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

      Re: Maintenance

      My petrol powered car goes for about 200 hours between services and about 10 hours between refuelling stops, so it's not like each vehicle needs one dedicated support person. When you're supporting a fleet of identical vehicles, even major services can be performed reasonably quickly.

      Transition to electric vehicles and the service interval becomes much longer. Recharging might become an issue if it's required more than once a day, which (based on current EV range) it probably will be if the vehicles are in service 24 hours.

      I can only speculate about what the cleaning requirements would be, but there are ways to encourage people to treat the vehicles with respect...

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Maintenance

      Google can't update a smartphone's firmware and have it work correctly.

      I'd sooner someone with some experience of failsafe mission critical software was involved.

  2. Nick Kew

    billion?

    Easy to confuse those "b" and "m" keys on a qwerty!

    The valuation looks a bit like a worldwide monopoly figure. For something at the optimistic end of how big "dial-a-vehicle" might eventually grow. How much will a day of Ellison's superyacht eventually cost through uber?

    1. Cliff

      Re: billion?

      Indeed - a billion is huge compared with a million but people can't picture large numbers accurately. For context people can picture ...

      A million seconds is 11 days

      A billion seconds is 31 years.

      A billion is a BIG number.

    2. Conrad Rockenhaus

      Re: billion?

      I don't see how a service that connects drivers to passengers can be worth over a billion dollars, let alone 40 billion. They don't own the cars, I doubt they own their own data center infrastructure, it's an app, some developers, and a yacht.

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: billion?

        it's an app, some developers, and a yacht

        Based on the behavior of Uber devs and execs, I'd guess they also have a tidy amount of alcoholic beverages available.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "The first being that it's their money to waste" - are you sure?

    If I learnt something about economy, is that investors often like to waste somebody else money. While storing their own safely in some "paradise".

    Don't get me wrong - I like investors who risk their own money. That's what a *true* investor is.

    What I do not like are investor that borrows money, or lure banks and the like to back their very risky and often absurd investments - and when the bubble collapse, ask for taxpayers money because they're "too big to fall", the whole economy would collapse without a bailout, etc. etc.

    1. Cliff

      Re: "The first being that it's their money to waste" - are you sure?

      Worse, it's institutional investors gambling other peoples pensions for personal gain. Shits.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "The first being that it's their money to waste" - are you sure?

      "What I do not like are investor that borrows money, or lure banks and the like to back their very risky and often absurd investments"

      I find even more troubling the extent to which Too Big To Fail (and even previously bailed out banks) are busy with their own private equity arms, which are simply using bail out money, central bank QE, and public guarantees to underwrite their own direct gambling in the private equity space, in much the same way that these same banks engage in proprietary trading that privatises the gains whilst socialising any major losses.

      Of course, if the investments in Uber, European property, or tulips goes bad, then the Fed, BoE or ECB will take the now worthless "collateral" and hand out a big wadge of fresh cash to the idiots to waste on something new.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Surprise - the bailouts were profitable!

        Fannie Mae alone earned a profit of $84 billion in 2013. That's more than Apple, Google, Microsoft, Exxon and GE made in 2013 combined.

        Certainly the way it was done where those responsible for the mess escaped blame and got to keep their ill-gotten gains really sucked, but in the US the bailout has been paid for and will end up with very large profit.

        Not saying it is a good thing for the government to be in competition with private business, but since private business demonstrated it was not capable of managing mortgage sales on its own I'd prefer the taxpayers take the profits rather than a few CEOs and connected shareholders who get warned in time to cash out before it is too late, while the little guy takes the fall.

        http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/21/news/economy/fannie-profit-bailout/

        1. theblackhand

          Re: Surprise - the bailouts were profitable!

          Careful when comparing US mortgage debt with other countries.

          In the US, Fanny Mae got into trouble when people couldn't repay their mortgages and choose to wlak away. The asset passes to Fanny Mae and the borrower is left with nothing (no asset but also no debt) which leaves Fanny Mae with a large loss that has to be filled with government money but can be quickly rescued (assuming you don't ask too many questions about where all that government money comes from and the side effects....). Hence Fanny Mae is now profitable.

          In many other countries (i.e. the UK), failing to pay your mortgage triggers a mortgagee sale and then any difference between sale of the asset and the outstanding debt remains the responsibility of the borrower - this leads to a large pile of debt that continues to accrue interest with something that will eventually be written off (it's labelled "toxic debt" as it will never be repaid). As this debt can only be written off as banks make more money, it greatly slows an economies recovery.

          Note: there are some generalisations but the post is long enough as is...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Surprise - the bailouts were profitable!

            My point was that all that money that the US government put into Fannie/Freddie has now been paid back and are now accruing profit for the US government. The "large loss" you mention is gone as all that original money has been paid back. ALL of the money (plus 7.5% as of Dec. 1) the US government put for for ALL bailouts has been paid back in total, with some sectors like the automakers still not fully paid back but compensated for others (and bailing them out meant their employees who stayed employed kept paying taxes, instead of being added to the unemployment rolls so really the auto bailout has been paid for too if you take that into account)

            There are only some states in the US that are "non recourse" and allow you walk away from your debt as you say. It is a minority of states though - however, it is probably no coincidence that most the states at the epicenter of the mortgage crisis in the US were non recourse.

            "Where the money came from" was of course additional debt of the US government, but as it has been paid back the net debt added is now zero. There were other measures like QE that will take years to unwind, but now that the US government is no longer continuing to add to that total it will resolve itself over the next 5 to 10 years as most of the debt held by the Fed matures.

            I agree that other countries approached the problem differently, due to different circumstances, and their bailouts may not be as successful as the US bailout can be judged in hindsight. That may be the reason why the US economy is finally starting to show signs of strength while much of the rest of the world is still struggling with the effects of the economic shock.

  4. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    And now Spain says 'No'

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30395093

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: And now Spain says 'No'

      And India too

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-30390691

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Money

    It is correct to say that it is the investors money to spend/ waste as they wish, but if Uber floats anywhere near the proposed value then a significant number of pension funds, insurance companies and tracker funds will be obliged to buy stock.

    So even if you do not want to actively invest in Uber your hands-off financial instruments will be doing so on your behalf.

    1. Omgwtfbbqtime

      ...your hands-off financial instruments ...

      And that is why I have a SIPP.

      15 years to retirement and I have most of my investments are in Biotech/healthcare/pharmacy.

      Pretty certain that Uber will not be invested in by any of my funds.

    2. JLV

      Re: Money

      So true.

      After poking fun at Zynga a few days ago, I clicked on its "major stockholders" section of Google Finance. Guess what, I recognized some of my mutual funds.

      Oft overpaid idiots, mutual fund firms. 2% (Canada) to manage someone else's $? Whether you make them a profit or a loss?

      Nice work if you can get it. And certainly enough $ bilked to pay for all sorts of spiffy ads & "unbiased" investment advisor kickbacks.

      1. Omgwtfbbqtime

        Re: Money

        Disclaimer - I'm not an investment professional and this does not constitute financial advice - it's purely anecdotal.

        I shifted my Pearl Assurance private pension back in May as I was sick of sub 3% returns.

        I opened a SIPP with trustnet direct (low charges and fairly free choice of funds/trusts/shares - more or less limited to whats available on the UK market, so no NASDAQ directly).

        A weekends research later, plus a good helping of my own prejudices/beliefs (that banking/finance sucks balls and that aging populations/Ebola/cancer/HIV/dementia/ad infinitum means good returns on healthcare/biotech for the foreseeable future). I invest the lump across 8 funds and 2 trusts.

        6 months later I've averaged 16% growth (after fees) though if I had gambled it all in biotech/healthcare it would have been between 30 and 50% growth depending on how I split it - there were 2 of my choices that havent performed as well as I would have hoped (both having lost around 8.5%) but these are not short term holdings - I'll see if they pick up over the next 2 or so years then decide what to do with them.

        So if your traditional private pension is tanking take control of it with a SIPP, chances of doing worse than the mutuals is low and you may hit the jackpot. The longer you have till retirement the more chance you have to make a difference to your retirement pot.

  6. Grikath

    problem...

    Uber has raised the jolly roger and has, at least here in the Netherlands, stated they are not planning to go through due process, ignore national laws and regulations, and soldier on regardless. This does not endear you to our otherwise extremely tolerant government, let alone less tolerant ones. If you interfere with government revenue streams ( which taxy licensing is...) and make long faces while doing it, well..

    But let's go with the autocab idea.. Assuming the technology is refined at current speed, trials are held, larger scale trials are held, laws are adapted to allow for the technology, infrastructure is modified to allow for the technology... you're talking 10 to 15 years in the future. If there's an actual political will to do so. It might be feasible in a dense urban area, but even then I simply can't see it happening, unless the scheme is comprehensive and would effectively act as the sole mode of transport, except the few top dogs who could afford the permits for a personal vehicle.

    It won't fly, and Uber will eventually be a nice black hole.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: problem...

      The problem in the Netherlands (and in Spain) seems to be with their UberPop ride-sharing service - not surprisingly, since these are just ordinary Joes driving their personal vehicles seemingly without all the background checking, hire-and-reward insurance, public liability insurance etc that taxis are subject to. The Uber taxi-booking service as operating in London and elsewhere puts all those things in place and runs on the same basis as ordinary private hire vehicles, making it far less controversial.

    2. DainB Bronze badge

      Re: problem...

      Easy solution, no need to fight company. Book Uber, get into the car, issue fine on the spot for operating unlicensed taxi, preferable with license suspension and court appearance, spread the word in the local news. 20-50 fines should be enough to put drivers off Uber for life.

      Hell, I'd be doing it all day for mere 50% of 1700 AU$ fine.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: problem...

        Impound the illegal taxi.

        Regulators and Authorities can clean out their jurisdiction in a couple of days.

        Uber won't be worth billions once everyone realizes how trivial it is to shut them down. It's like catching hungry stray dogs when you have a truck load of bacon and cheese, 'Here Boy!! Come here boy!!'

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: problem...

          "Impound the illegal taxi."

          Here in my neck of the woods (of Blighty) such an approach would (and occasionally does) result in near shut down of the officially licensed taxi service, because for some mysterious reasons the licensed taxis are "shared" by multiple drivers all working less than twelve hours a week (so as not to affect their "benefits") and the majority of the cars are therefore used by everybody, maintained by nobody.

      2. JLV

        Re: problem...

        >Book Uber, get into the car, issue fine

        Upvoted for common sense but

        wouldn't that be legally considered as entrapment? Though I agree with your sentiment in principle.

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: problem...

          wouldn't that be legally considered as entrapment?

          IANAL, and who knows how courts would interpret it; but I can see an argument that it's not entrapment. You're not enticing someone to commit a crime. First, you're not communicating with the driver directly - you're just publishing a notice via the app. Second, they've already agreed, in principle, to commit a crime, and you're merely suggesting where it might occur.

    3. J.G.Harston Silver badge

      Re: problem...

      "If you interfere with government revenue streams ( which taxy licensing is...)"

      I used to be a local government licensing board member. Taxi licensing isn't a revenue stream, the fees barely covers the costs of the licensing system. Uber is nothing new, it's just a version of telephone booking. As long as the vehicles pass their MOT-plus and are licensed, and the drivers pass their CRB-plus and are licensed, I don't care how a taxi is booked. In my area local taxi companies have had online and SMS booking facilities for yonks.

  7. AMBxx Silver badge
    Joke

    It's a bargain

    They said similar things about Boo.com - look how big they became.

    1. Cliff

      Re: It's a bargain

      dotcomboomandbust1.0, I remember it well.

      Apparently I'm alone in that, so here we all go into #dcbabv2

  8. mathew42

    I suggest that car hire companies, particularly the newer ones with membership where you can book a car online and unlock it electronically from it's parking spot are best placed to take advantage of driverless cars.

    In Australia, taxi licenses are around $250,000 - $500,000 and are rarely owned by the driver. Cars are upgraded every 4 years so. Drivers make ~50% of the fare so once driverless cars are available it won't take long for the taxi industry to take advantage.

    1. DainB Bronze badge

      Those companies require you to return car to same spot, which is far from being convenient in most circumstances and have really nasty insurance policies when it comes to minor damage or scratches.

      It's also cheaper just get old fashioned rental if you need car for longer than few hours.

    2. JeffyPoooh
      Pint

      "...so once driverless cars are available..."

      "...so once driverless FLYING FUSION POWERED cars are available..."

      There, I fixed it for you.

  9. P. Lee

    Driver costs

    Of course, in Delhi, drivers don't cost anything like $50k/year. Labour is in fact, very cheap.

    The other problem is that in the article, it looks as though cost figures have been averaged. The demand for cars is not even 24/7. If everyone needs a car at 8:30am, you won't cut car ownership because at that time there won't be any spare to share.

    What you might be able to do is have people rent out their driverless cars off-peak, which will hammer the taxi companies and possibly leave you with a pool of vomit in your car for the next morning. Insurance may be an issue and respect for "robot" cars is likely to be low, especially from ex-taxi drivers.

    The problem is that no-one is making money elsewhere in the economy which makes long-shots and "pump&dump" more attractive than it should be.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Driver costs

      >If everyone needs a car at 8:30am, you won't cut car ownership...

      I might consider a bus that I book to stop by my house at a certain time every weekday, provided it wasn't full of the chavvy weirdos you get on the existing buses of course.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    it's their money to waste as they wish

    is 40 billion USD really "their" money?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "How much will a day of Ellison's superyacht eventually cost through uber?"

    Probably less than the software licences for a 16 way cluster of a certain database engine ....

  12. a pressbutton
    Holmes

    uber is a giant minicab co

    and should be regulated as such.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: uber is a giant minicab co

      Yes, I don't understand why they don't fall under the private hire regulations either.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Who is Peter Thiel? Who cares?

    "Peter Thiel has recently pointed out that while free markets and competition are all very well that's not quite what businessmen want to be running or founding. They'd much prefer to be able to produce a monopoly, or at least something with barriers to entry."

    He's quite right, at least with the US/UK variant of capitalism (more accurately described as corporatism, perhaps) but it's not a particularly original thought.

    Adam Smith said the same thing too, long before anyone had heard of Peter Thiel.

  14. This post has been deleted by its author

  15. Frankee Llonnygog

    Unanswered question

    With the advent of driver-less white vans - will the Union Jack industry go out of business?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Unanswered question

      Union Jack flags? Do they still make them?

      Round my way its all St George's flags, and my personal bête noire, a St George's flag with 'England' written along the horizontal stripe.

      Sometime between Italia 1990 (Gazza cried) and Euro 1996 (Three Lions song) the Union flag fell from favour among football supporters and the St George streamed in.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Unanswered question

        "Sometime between Italia 1990 (Gazza cried) and Euro 1996 (Three Lions song) the Union flag fell from favour among football supporters and the St George streamed in."

        To be fair, that does make sense since England and Scotland compete as seperate countries in international football so the Union Flag is the wrong one to use for that. (I assume NI and Wales also have football teams but I don't recall them being in the news in recent decades so I could be wrong)

  16. Mage Silver badge

    But Google?

    Google in the Taxi or Delivery business?

    Only as a sideline to sell more adverts.

    Do they make any SIGNIFICANT profit from anything other than selling adverts?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A robotic car won't commit rape? Really?

    You are obviously watching a very different type of Japanese anime than I am....

  18. Lord Egerton
    Thumb Up

    Re: problem...

    @Credas I agree, it does seem to be just one of Uber's products that's causing the lion's share of the problems.

    In Manchester we only have UberX and UberXL - for all intents and purpose they are taxi's, not random drivers who just turned on the app and went to pick up some people like with UberPOP/POOL. BUT so far my experience with them has been 100% great! For starters they're much, much cheaper, quicker and nicer than any other minicab company I've dealt with in Manchester. Also the aspect of it being cashless is brilliant!

    There definitely seems to be a media war being raged against them - BBC claiming they've been banned in Spain atm but the ruling isn't actually enforced until a fee is paid by the Madrid Taxi Assoc - nee Cartel. Word of mouth testimonies influenced me to give them a try and I don't regret it. I'll keep using them until I have reason not to.

  19. Version 1.0 Silver badge

    Uber valuation

    Essentially Uber et al. are in the taxi business that they are not competing with because of the regulations that the taxi companies comply with - and Uber ignores. I'd give them maybe 18-24 months before Uber (and other companies in the same market) are out of business once their users realize that Uber's making money selling their location data to the highest bidder.

    The old fashioned Taxi business could easily change to put Uber out of business - it's just a matter of time ... and liability.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Uber valuation

      They already are.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    follow the money

    when the same investors that profit from the obscene valution of Uber are the same investors holding the reigns of the social media outlets that constantly defend and promote Uber, it makes sense.

    All the positive press is produced solely for the benefit of those who own the press outlets. "Reputation Management" outfits, often also owned by the same people, provide the faux "public support".

    Notice in a lot of these overvalued tech schemes, there is always a LOT of "passionate ground roots support" and official Blog/tech media punditry, until ownership changes hands down to some sucker, then suddenly, it ALL disappears-the fan support, the punditry, the articles in defense of the high valuation and/or the shady/nonexistent/nonsensical "business plan." Lots of people crying foul from the rooftops at any common sense criticism aimed at the latest darling "disruptive" company that suddenly silence when those who are "supposed" to profit have gotten their share.

    Kinda like all those "passionate" California anti war protestors who packed up their camps immediately almost 8 years ago, when nothing changed except who was to blame for continuing the conflict.

  21. G Mac

    I still don't see $40B

    "Does that make Uber worth $40 billion? All a bit speculative really but it is at least conceivable that it does."

    I still don't see the secret sauce as unique. Let's say that Google tech is up to snuff, *and* that technology improves beyond that:

    * No urban restriction - tech is up to snuff right to handle suburb, exburb and even rural... or we discounting that?

    * Uber booking app? Why wouldn't you just hookup CraigsList (insert similar bulletin board style handling) and bypass the middle man? You don't need to rate the driver since there isn't one - only the state of the vehicle;

    * Why would it have to be a company owning the car bots? If making cash is so great, why wouldn't a private person invest in a vehicle that goes out and works for them? And they look after maintenance etc. And using supply/demand how wouldn't this push down the pricing to low 'optimal' level?

    So again, what is the basis for the "conceivable" $40B valuation in the car bot world? Quite frankly, what is the basis for the "conceivable" $40B valuation with the secret sauce for Uber in the *non*-car bot world?

  22. Mike Flugennock
    Facepalm

    Driverless internet gypsy cab? What could go wrong?

    I wouldn't ride in a driverless internet gypsy cab if my life depended on it... never mind the whole issue of exploiting casual labor and driving down legit taxi drivers' wages.

    Human drivers may be fallible, but let's not forget that the driverless cars are programmed by HUMANS, f'crissake.

    1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

      Re: Driverless internet gypsy cab? What could go wrong?

      So no comparison of relative safety statistics could ever convince you?

      1. Cliff

        Re: Driverless internet gypsy cab? What could go wrong?

        Driverless Aeroplanes - look up! The pilots in modern fly-by-wire planes are the secondary system, they *ask* the plane to to something, the plane responds to if the systems all agree.

        There's an aviation gag about modern planes being designed for a pilot and a dog. The dog's there to make sure nobody touches the controls, the pilot's there to feed the dog.

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Driverless internet gypsy cab? What could go wrong?

          There's an aviation gag about modern planes being designed for a pilot and a dog. The dog's there to make sure nobody touches the controls, the pilot's there to feed the dog.

          I remember seeing this joke1 in a press release from Lawson Software in the mid-1990s. Wikiquote suggests Warren Bennis coined it around 1991.

          Personally, I think the challenges facing driverless cars are rather greater than those faced by human-supervised fly-by-wire planes. Even given the dismal safety performance of human drivers, I'm in no hurry to try the former. Once they have a record of good performance in widespread deployment over several years, perhaps.

          1I use the term loosely.

  23. Mike Moyle

    "After all, the robots aren't going to (...) rape anyone, are they?"

    ...Never saw "Saturn 3", did you...?

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I would guess that they are familiar with the recent rides of glory to or from the residences of politicians and that this gives them a certain feeling of security.

  25. Chris G

    Robot cabs? 5 minutes

    That's how long one would last in Ibiza or Mallorca and I suspect many other places.

    A taxi licence here is worth somewhere between 3 and 400.000€ occasionally they are sold or bought but mostly they are kept in the same families they were issued to from the beginning.

    In Ibiza the cabbies wont even allow temporary licences for the summer when there are not enough cabs to go round.

    The cabs run on mostly diesel and white powder in the summer, drive like maniacs to get rid of the current passenger and get to the next one. Many earn enough in the summer to enable them to holiday for several weeks in Thailand in the winter, two local cabs are Range Rover Evocs, so they do Okay.

    They are also known for strongly resisting such anathema as free buses between the clubs ( they beat up the drivers of one operator and burnt at least one of his buses some years back when it was tried). So a robot cab is going to come to a sticky or at least crispy end here and I am sure in many other places where either the money is ridiculously good or where whole extended families depend on the income from one driver such as India and much of the Far East.

    1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

      Re: Robot cabs? 5 minutes

      Automatic weaving loom factories were burnt down by the people whose jobs were replaced in the early days too.

      This sounds like the local feral operators taking out competition in the form of other small operators. I wonder whether they'd survive taking on Google...

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I work at a truck stop (seriously)

    ...and I'm really unsure we want to force truckers to reintegrate back into society.

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: I work at a truck stop (seriously)

      Now I'll have that song by Ed's Redeeming Qualities running through my head all day.

  27. Florida1920
    Alien

    When they become aware

    Traveler in strange city: Take me to the airport

    Driverless Google SmartCar: About 931,000,000 results (0.52 seconds)

    Traveler: Oh, ****

    Thanks, I'll drive myself. Got my keys right here.

  28. ecofeco Silver badge
    FAIL

    Uber - NOT worth 40 BILLION

    Uber is not worth 40 billion. Uber is just another tech bubble and someone is going to get rich and someone is going to get burned.

    Besides the Uber copycats, many cab companies have had, now have or are about to introduce, their own phone app.

    As we speak, many an Uber driver is finding out what many short-haul drivers of both taxis, trucks and couriers, even pizza delivery, already know: there's no money in it except for the lucky few. (and hasn't for almost 2 decades) It makes waiting tables part-time look lucrative. (I've done all three)

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