If the taxi/rideshare drivers lose their jobs to robotaxis – how will Uber make money?
I don't see why, if Waymo, Tesla, etc. have direct-to-consumer apps, that any robotaxi car company would pay a middleman fee to Uber. Even at this point there would surely be AI agents who would book rides for you, negating the use of an app at all.
I hold a small position in Uber I'm thinking of selling, but I am curious what any other holders think the "bull" case is
If the taxi/rideshare drivers lose their jobs to robotaxis – how will Uber make money?
byu/mymooh instocks
Posted by mymooh
6 Comments
uber will pivot to ai and see their valuation 10x 👍
So puts?
No right?
Uber already has the infrastructure. Insurance. Everything else involved with rideshare. They have the licenses and cities across the world.
What they may do is their license their software out to all of these other doing companies and then take a cut.
They will probably make much more money then they do now giving the drivers 40% of what they take in
The value is in being already installed, id verified, credit card added for over 200 million people. Their intent is less about training their own self driving modals (which they still might do) but become the self driving car marketplace
You open uber and zoox, Waymo, Rivian, yellow taxis and just random drivers can all offer you a ride at their price, and you choose
People think Uber will be used by these autonomous vehicle companies when the reality is Uber is a much worse platform to use than Waymo and a Teslas own apps and infrastructure.
The main case to be made for Uber is that they already have a large user base for their app all across the world. If your company can build a robotaxi, you could presumably partner with Uber and put your vehicles on the Uber network, immediately begin giving rides.
Otherwise though, you are right. Tesla has launched its robotaxi service in the bay area and Austin. They have over 500 vehicles in the bay area, and they have no difficulty getting users, the wait times are long. They are undercutting Uber on price slightly, and this draws users to the app. If one service is 25%+ cheaper than the other, and you don’t need to tip, word will spread. It also seems that people prefer driverless robotaxis. I’ve taken a lot of Uber rides, and most of the time it’s fine, but sometimes drivers listen to annoying music, are on the phone, have the windows open in winter, or have really bad body odor.
I personally don’t think Uber has that much of a moat, but that being said, it could take years for Uber and Tesla to expand globally. They have to build logistic lots and vehicles to be shipped globally, and you still need people to maintain said lots and vehicles. One advantage that Tesla has over Waymo is that they already have infrastructure (e.g. superchargers, show rooms, warehouses, vehicle delivery) in many countries. They also have their own construction crews. Whereas Waymo is not a global entity and is probably using subcontractors for everything.