This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Uber Pledges to Go All-Electric, but It Doesn't Own the Cars
|
Log In/Create an Account
| Top
| 31 comments
| Search Discussion
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
(1)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday September 14 2020, @02:38PM (8 children)
Since they assert they aren't transport companies but just, you know, some "technology" ones, they only need to switch their "company cars" to electric.
Not gonna be a trick that will get them any congrats from those to whom they made the pledge, but hey, that's 10 years into the future and they can use the favors (that they chase with this pledge) starting next quarter; because bonuses to the executives, these are incentives alright.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Monday September 14 2020, @03:45PM (7 children)
Seems to me there's two easy (for them) options that they could pursue to fulfill the pledge in spirit as well as technicality:
1) Phase out drivers who own non-electric cars - you want to be an Uber driver, you need to buy an electric car.
2) Phase out drivers altogether in favor of a fleet of autonomous cars. As I recall they've already declared their intention to do this several times, they're just waiting on autonomous driving systems to get good enough to pull it off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 14 2020, @04:04PM (1 child)
They'll never do option 1, unless the vast majority of their drivers are driving them and the PR gain is better than the lost driver revenue.
I'm pretty sure they are betting on your option 2. And if it doesn't work out that way, or on that time scale? Who cares? There's no penalty for not meeting this "pledge."
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday September 14 2020, @04:11PM
They could easily tilt the playing field for 1) without immediate disruption - e.g. all new drivers must drive EVs and let the old ones age out. Or even just pay EV drivers a higher rate, or give them other preferential treatment. I understand they give preference to to the closest driver to a new fare, so they could simply subtract a few blocks from the computed distance for EV drivers.
(Score: 2) by mth on Monday September 14 2020, @04:57PM (2 children)
3) Go backrupt before 2030.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday September 14 2020, @09:19PM
If Uber cannot keep finding marks to continue to pour money in that's what will happen, as they still lose a billion every year.
They're a ponzi scheme.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @08:36PM
2021 would be a whole lot better. The sooner Uber and all the other "disruptive" fool companies die, the better for all humanity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 14 2020, @06:53PM (1 child)
Until they can carry ANYONE in those "new" vehicles, they will never get this done.
I am 6'8", I use wheelchair. Without the chair, I can NOT ride (let alone drive) in Toyota, Honda, Dodge, 5/6 Fords, 3/4 GM. Not to forget Telsa are roller skates. (lookup SHAQ's youtube to Telsa).
I drive a LARGE 2013 GM, because I can get in the driver seat, but still need hand controls. I can only ride in the front passenger seat, whne my wife drives. The kids cannot even sit behind me... log room is less than 1". 2019 LARGE GM do not even fit me (DAMN Center Consoles take my knee space).
I want to electric but never will have. Maybe who making Amazon Electric vans will make human use vans too. Then It can be modified.
Since UNER cannot decrimate, they need to keep a fleet of H/C supported drivers. So gas for next 10+ years unless some can get the manufacturers to build vehicles for EVERYONE.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday September 14 2020, @10:48PM
A quick search suggests that Uber only provides wheelchair accessible vehicles in select cities, when available. Which is not surprising, they're hardly in a position to require drivers to with such vehicles to join there business.
If they can get away with that today, what makes you think things will necessarily be better tomorrow?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by legont on Monday September 14 2020, @02:59PM (2 children)
The greatest Taliban of all times Xosha Nasreddine once promised the Shah to teach a donkey speak, write and promote liberal ideas for just about a million bucks in modern money up front. When he got the money someone asked if he were afraid, but he said that in 10 years either or both will be dead, Allah the greatest.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 14 2020, @08:38PM (1 child)
Why is this offtopic? Its just a long winded version of
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday September 15 2020, @02:27PM
Probably because I mentioned Allah, which is a deadly sin for yet to be converted.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 14 2020, @05:17PM
like a carbon offset, only different.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday September 14 2020, @06:05PM (6 children)
I have to admit, I'm amazed they've been able to get away with, for this long, demanding that their not-employees-but-totally-employees take on nearly all of their capital expenses for them, namely the cost of buying and owning the car they're using to provide the sole product the not-a-car-service-but-totally-a-car-service companies provide.
And now they're making demands about what capital expenses said totally-not-employees have to undertake to be employed by their company. That kind of thing has been the bane of every contract farmer's existence for a long time, and is also a longstanding characteristic of pyramid schemes. Great.
All this just to avoid investment in and use of public transportation systems and/or bicycles.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 14 2020, @06:31PM
To summarize, Uber is a sleazy VC-funded company.
News at 11.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday September 14 2020, @07:01PM (1 child)
Don't worry. They are going to shove a boot up every driver's ass and roll out the robots.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday September 14 2020, @07:11PM
Already, the math for drivers often amounts to "Turn your car's depreciation for driving it around into money you can use to pay the bills right now". Which only gets people taking the deal because (a) millions of people are desperate enough for cash that it really is the least-bad option for them, and (b) lots of people have no clue what "depreciation" is and most of the rest don't know how to calculate it. It's one of the basic facts of life that those who can do the math (and/or hire somebody to do the math for them) can and do take advantage of those who can't.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 15 2020, @10:47AM (2 children)
The elephant in the room is that most of their contractors already bought/own a car. The capital expenses already happened. I really don't get how people can forget the basics. These businesses exist in the first place because a) most people own cars, and b) prior, there was no easy way to make money off that car - it was a big capital asset with little value outside of personal use.
Hell yes. Let's not forget what we can squander our wealth on instead.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 15 2020, @01:14PM (1 child)
No, the capital expenses didn't already happened, because of what I mentioned in reply to a sibling post, namely depreciation: The more you drive a car, the less valuable it is either as a trade-in or an insurance payout in the case of an accident, and the more wear-and-tear accumulates on the vehicle costing you time and/or money to repair it. Even if your car is running perfectly and never gets damaged driving it around for a ride-sharing company, you are still paying for fuel, oil (plus the time of the people to change it if you don't know how to do it yourself or aren't allowed to due to environmental laws), and tires.
And now, with this new initiative, odds are pretty good that most of their drivers don't own an all-electric vehicle already, and will now have to buy one if they want to compete, probable on credit, so now they'll be driving people around to pay back the bank for the car they bought to drive other people around. Plus running up the repair bills and such, which because these cars are all modern and computerized and stuff have to be repaired at a dealer because your local garage won't have access to the equipment they need.
Cab, limo, and car service companies are responsible for buying and maintaining their vehicles. Ride-sharing companies push that investment onto the drivers. That's a substantial difference.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 15 2020, @10:41PM
Nope. Cars would depreciate anyway. The depreciation is somewhat increased by heavier driving and there would be the additional cost of commercial auto insurance and fuel/basic maintenance, but it remains that there is frequently a large capital investment - the car plus default depreciation whether or not it is used for ride hailing.
Unless, of course, a new competitor comes out who isn't so concerned about electric vehicles.
So what? No one has yet to explain why that is supposed to be a problem.
(Score: 2) by Username on Monday September 14 2020, @11:34PM
If burning some form of oil to turn a turbine in order to produce electricity, which is then stored and used to drive an electric motor is considered all electric, does that mean anything that uses electricity at any step can be considered an electric vehicle? Can I use electricity to create fuel, then burn that fuel and still be all electric? What about electric motors turning the fuel pump?
Also, they're probably referring to company cars they use to shuttle execs. The affluent usually do not know what their company does. They gain their position through cronyism. Probably completely oblivious to the fact that uber is a company that facilitates transit. They just know their fellows will judge them poorly if they're seen in a gasoline powered car. So to solve this shame, they change the company cars to teslas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 15 2020, @02:03AM (8 children)
By 2030 we are sure to have autonomous cars so Uber will own them and can buy electric.
This is a big factor in why they are so valuable, people everywhere already have their app installed
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday September 15 2020, @07:19AM (7 children)
I'm gonna say that by 2030 we'll have a not-much-greater percentage of no-higher-level autonomy than we do now.
Tesla is 17 years old this year, don't forget.
Now, granted, we will have more electric cars because we've mandated that ICE sales must stop by 2030-2035 depending on which country you are in, so that's inevitable.
But autonomy? No.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 15 2020, @11:03AM (6 children)
The great majority [theclimatecenter.org] (see pages 3-4) of countries have made no such commitment.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday September 15 2020, @11:34AM (5 children)
Which is why I said "more", and not "all".
Europe is basically onboard. The rest will follow suit eventually. But an entire continent banning ICE cars within the next 10-15 years will definitely sell a lot more electric cars. They just might not be Tesla.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 15 2020, @12:08PM (4 children)
Who is "we" here?
Even if every country on that list were European, you're still missing more than half of Europe's countries. There are 44 countries that are wholly or partly in Europe. Only 20 countries had bans on the list I linked to.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday September 15 2020, @12:18PM (3 children)
The EU countries are literally lining up legislation and have been for years:
In October 2019, [Denmark] made a new proposal for phasing out fossil fuel vehicles on the member state level by 2040; this proposal complied to the rules, and was supported by 10 other EU member states.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday September 15 2020, @01:04PM (2 children)
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday September 15 2020, @01:45PM (1 child)
Because of a technical issue on a document filing.
They will have it as EU law for all member states within the year or so. They'd have had it already, if the procedure hadn't thrown up a tiny issue with the way it was filed.
You're not really going to have ICE cars in Europe by 2030-35, because by 2040 they will be literally banned from manufacture - and in half the EU (mostly the car-producing states - Spain, Germany, etc.) that's already in their own law, and some to be earlier than even that.
And, as such, "we will have more electric cars". Because who is going to buy a car that will be taxed to oblivion by then, and parts won't be readily available because of the literal ban on making any more such cars just a few years away?
And there is literally already serious talk about bringing it back to 2030 in those states (the UK already brought theirs back from 2040 to 2035 only this year).
Watch as those countries ban ICE car manufacture, then put in a heavier road tax on them, then put in scrappage schemes where you get paid thousands to hand them in and replace them with an electric car.
Honestly: Plan for electric / hybrid cars to boom within 10 years.
And I'm a complete technology pessimist and still think electric isn't ready at all, not least because of the complete lack of infrastructure. Don't even get me started on "AI" cars though.
My local paper recently made a front-page fuss about 2 new electric slow-charge parking spots in a closed-off estate that anyone can use. Such a thing is not going to change the world, or even the neighbourhood, in terms of access to charging.
And I live in a flat over which I have no control of the electrics, no ability to cable down to my car parked in its outside space, and no way to get my landlord to facilitate anything of the sort. Hell, they won't stick a 5W lightbulb in a clearly-dangerous unlit alleyway that's the only access to a bunch of flats, because "there is no utility electric in that part of the site", and it's been complained about by every resident for the last 20 years. I literally have to advise visitors to bring a torch if they come after sunset.
You're going to have millions more electric cars by 2030-35, whether you like it or not. And I don't even think we're ready for that.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 16 2020, @12:36AM
Moving on:
I think the same. BUT I think we'll see a marked economic impairment among countries that try to force the transition without having adequate infrastructure and political support.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday September 15 2020, @07:16AM
Clearly you haven't worked in politics.
You then get to that deadline and either a) you achieved what you promised or b) you have someone to blame for you not doing so ("We put in processes and incentives, but a small subset of our drivers still insist on polluting our atmosphere, and they have been given that autonomy by policymakers, not Uber!").
Ref: Brexit.