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Uber may be looking to purchase thousands of autonomous cars, but it seems that no deal has been finalized:
Ride-hailing service Uber has sounded out car companies about placing a large order for self-driving cars, an auto industry source said on Friday. "They wanted autonomous cars," the source, who declined to be named, said. "It seemed like they were shopping around."
Loss-making Uber would make drastic savings on its biggest cost -- drivers -- if it were able to incorporate self-driving cars into its fleet. Volkswagen's Audi, Daimler's Mercedes-Benz, BMW and car industry suppliers Bosch and Continental are all working on technologies for autonomous or semi-autonomous cars.
Earlier on Friday, Germany's Manager Magazin reported that Uber had placed an order for at least 100,000 Mercedes S-Class cars, citing sources at both companies. The top-flight limousine, around 100,000 of which Mercedes-Benz sold last year, does not yet have fully autonomous driving functionality.
Another source familiar with the matter said no order had been placed with Mercedes-Benz. Daimler and Uber declined to comment.
Auto industry executives are wary of doing deals with newcomers from the technology and software business who threaten to upend established business models based on manufacturing and selling cars. "We don't want to end up like Nokia's handset business, which was once hugely profitable...then disappeared," a second auto industry source said about doing a deal with Uber. [...] Earlier this week Mercedes rival BMW said it was considering launching its own ride hailing service in what would amount to a rival business to Uber.
An order of 100,000 Mercedes S-Class cars would cost billions, even with a steep discount. Reuters hasn't removed the reference to the 100,000 Mercedes-Benz cars, as seen above.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Unixnut on Monday March 21 2016, @06:06AM
I mean, originally Uber argued that it should not subject to the laws of other taxi companies, because it didn't own its own cars or employed its own drivers. It was just an app that connected "self employed" drivers who owned their own cars, and those willing to be driven by them (for a commission). A brokerage service for car pooling, essentially.
Fair enough, the argument worked, but now Uber is looking to buy its own fleet of cars (apparently), and self driving ones at that. Assuming the self driving cars work as intended, and people are willing to be driven by them, hasn't Uber just become another taxi company (albeit without drivers)? At that point they would fall under the very same rules and regulations they argued they were not subject to, and would make their business model far more expensive and unsustainable (well, more unsustainable than it already is).
Also, as self-driving cars are not there yet, the best you can do is some sort of semi-autonomous option, you would still need drivers. So who would drive Uber's cars? Would the drivers then be employees of Uber? I guess they could rent/lease the cars to the "self employed" drivers, but the main attraction of Uber was that it was cheaper than taxis, because people drove you in their own cars, and didn't bother getting the right insurance to do so.
I doubt it will be cheap to lease/rent an S-class, let alone insure it (even on personal "non commercial" insurance).
Really, if the article is true, what Uber is doing makes little sense. ATM I am going to go with not trusting the article, but we will see.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday March 21 2016, @06:24AM
Same as before, except for a smaller share of the ride fee; after being scared by Uber they'll be replaced by self-driving cars.
Stupid, I know, but makes a bit more sense than the alternative.
Or... can it be that Uber's management is that desperate/stupid to believe self-driving cars are a reality already?
Maybe Jobs' reality distortion field still persists in their mind?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Monday March 21 2016, @07:59AM
> Same as before
Didn't Uber drivers drive their own cars? Uber didn't provide them with any kind of vehicle themselves, no? That was Uber's main argument for why they should not be regulated like a taxi service, followed closely by the fact they didn't "employ" their drivers in any shape or form. So how would it be same as before?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday March 21 2016, @08:19AM
By the very nonexistence of any self-driving car certified as capable to carry passengers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Monday March 21 2016, @08:28AM
Uber absolutely is providing vehicles to some drivers:
http://qz.com/563622/ubers-new-car-rental-program-for-drivers-doesnt-actually-make-much-financial-sense/ [qz.com]
http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/1/9831364/uber-is-offering-cheap-rental-cars-to-its-denver-drivers [theverge.com]
https://get.uber.com/cl/enterprise/ [uber.com]
There is a startup called HyreCar which tries to do the same thing:
https://www.quora.com/Are-rental-cars-still-not-allowed-to-be-used-for-Uber-and-Lyft-How-could-I-drive-for-Uber-if-I-don%C2%B4t-own-a-car [quora.com]
Uber is more like a monstrous shapeshifting beast that can transform itself to match the reality of the regulatory environment in which it is trying to invade. That's why the app has a slider allowing you to choose from Uber, UberX, UberPool, UberBlack, etc. So when you say "That was Uber's main argument for why they should not be regulated like a taxi service," you have to take into account that Uber is not nearly that monolithic, and is trying to hoodwink regulators on a country or city-by-city basis. In some cities, it is welcomed by politicians as a "sharing economy" savior, and in others, it has multiple methods to either avoid or conform to regulation that would treat it like a taxi service.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Monday March 21 2016, @10:17AM
Thank you very much for your reply, if I had mod points you would get some. I had no idea Uber had spread so far and in so many directions. It seems they can indeed just weasel out of local regulations that way.
Yet another reason to not support them with my business. Thankfully round my end the established taxi companies, rather than lobbying to ban Uber, just started their own app based cab hailing. So yay for competition!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @03:22PM
I don't understand how Uber has avoided being considered an employer at least in Washington State. Our Worker's Comp system covers employees and independent contractors where the essence of the contract is personal labor. As for independent cab drivers who lease their vehicles, it has already been decided in WA that those drivers are workers and the cab companies responsible for Industrial Insurance premiums.
In WA, many employers try to escape workers comp by calling their workers "independent contractors" -- except in this state, they are covered if the essence of the contract is personal labor. For example, if you have a crane mounted on a barge that can haul up sunk boats and you get hired by someone, the essence of that contract is the use of the major piece of equipment. If you have a truck and get hired to deliver stuff, the essence of that contract is personal labor.
http://www.leagle.com/decision/198214831WnApp117_1136/ [leagle.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Zz9zZ on Monday March 21 2016, @06:29AM
Agreed, all the taxi cabs need to do is make their own app / web portals and be competitive on price. Also, eventually the government will step in and regulate Uber more heavily. If they are serious about this move I will be glad when they get an axe to come down on them. Selling out the very people who have literally made their company succeed is such a large sellout it will put all the previous offshoring to shame. There really wasn't much genius to the Uber business plan. Create an app that uses the government sponsored GPS system and Google's map services to let people hail cabs. A technical hurdle that could be solved by any group of coders. The smartest move was making it easy for just about anyone to get a job by putting up their own vehicle as a company asset, who needs venture capitalists?
So basically they sold out their own investors, the working people.
/tangent: We need a resurgence of ethics, choosing the difficult options over the convenient ones. Eschew Uber, Facebook, Google, Yelp. They all sell out the people in various ways. Most of those services can be replaced by personally owned or open source software and subscription based servers. The SaaS and Cloud based ecosystem is going to crash and burn, there are too many coders and eventually projects will evolve that are easy to deploy on any server. Then who needs these centralized systems that abuse their power for increased personal gain?
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday March 21 2016, @07:01AM
Taxi cab companies lobbied long and hard to get cab hailing apps outlawed (for one bogus reason or another). So it will be interesting to see how they wiggle out of that trap.
But you got all these different parties, cab companies, car manufacturers, Uber, Rental companies, Google each one missing one thing or another. Maint depots, hailing apps, autonomous technology...
Pay attention folks, and keep your pantry stocked with pop corn, this is going to be a 6 or 8 party Jump Ball, and its all going to happen before our eyes.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Monday March 21 2016, @07:08AM
No more points or I'd mod you up, time for bed anyway :D
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 21 2016, @01:38PM
They dont even have to do it 'right away' either.
They can leave their human guys for the more difficult areas. Then use the auto taxis in areas where they are just regulated as a taxi service or it is easy to drive in.
(Score: 2) by BasilBrush on Monday March 21 2016, @09:43PM
Have we had the year of Linux on the desktop yet? Your faith in the ability of open-source to take over markets is touching. Servers is about it.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Tuesday March 22 2016, @03:02AM
Uber's plan is to oust entrenched regulated monopolies and become an entrenched monopoly before the regulatory response occurs.
Honestly, this automated car thing seems a bit out of character since it's a little early to be pursuing that when they're still burning money in pursuit of their earlier plan. Maybe the theory is that owning a fleet of autonomous capable cars before anyone else will keep them ahead of the next iteration of taxi service. Seems a little silly since they're still in the middle of step 1 of their taxi domination plan.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.