Over the past month or two the number of Tesla sighting in Porto has increased dramatically, it could be the release of the refreshed Model Y. What I had not noticed before is the number of Teslas with the TVDE label which means ride hailing. TVDE is the Portuguese ride hailing system. It means mostly UBER and BOLT.
The cars can be the property of the company or independent owners.
There are lots of articles about Tesla Robotaxis killing UBER. I don’t see it. The main difference between Robotaxis and UBER is the driver. Why can’t UBER replace the Tesla drivers with the Robotaxi version of FSD? It would be a win for Tesla and UBER.
The brilliance of Uber is that it offloads all the icky part of the taxicab business onto someone else, and they take a cut of the revenue by playing gatekeeper between rider and provider.
Icky parts? Vehicle ownership, depreciation, oil, gas, maintenance, insurance, personnel, traffic tickets, and all the rest that I’ve forgotten. In your “why can’t UBER replace the Tesla drivers with the Robotaxi version of FSD” question, who picks up all the icky parts?
If it’s the Tesla drivers, maybe they don’t want to have their shiny new vehicle driving around without supervision? (Maybe they’ll get over that after a while, I suppose.) But then you’re looking for people who are Uber drivers to become capital allocators (fancy words for “owning a car”) which seems kind of out of the skill set for that group of people who are, for the moment, “taxicab drivers”.
Sure, there could be actual capital groups which own fleets, but that comes later, I think.
Anyway, to your question, it hasn’t happened because it isn’t ready yet - and when it is ready I’m sure there will be lots of people jostling for position, so it’s not clear to me how that industry will shake out. It’s certainly different from Uber playing the passive “toll taker” position, that’s for sure.
No, but Uber doesn’t own a single car. It would be strange for them to get into the hardware business.
I don’t think I understand. Robots are going to do depreciation? Pay for fuel? Buy insurance? Pay for tickets? Those are “icky” parts that Uber has nothing to do with now. Why would they start?
Yes, that’s what these board are: opinion. I don’t know for certain whether individual car owners will be comfortable sending their shiny automobiles out into the world without supervision. As an Uber driver, they are in charge; they can decline a passenger if they look sketchy, or if they’re about to throw up. A FSD5 won’t do that, so cars may not come back in the same shape. I’m sure some people will, I just don’t know how many will. (I have a nephew who drove for Uber/Lyft. Best money on Friday/Saturday nights when the bars closed. Also the most fraught. He doesn’t do it anymore. Too much hassle, too much wear on his nice car. Perhaps I’m over-emphasizing his troubles in my thinking.)
Yes, opinion. Hertz jumped in quickly, and now they have a new CEO, a multi-year write off, depressed profits, and declining stock. Maybe others will leap in with big money; we’ll see.
Of course. I also don’t throw money at every hare-brained scheme that comes along. I didn’t buy Global Crossing or Enron, for example. That said, I also didn‘t buy Nvidia or Bitcoin. I did buy Facebook, Google, and Apple, because I thought their business plans were pretty solid. Some I miss. As the Oracle of Omaha says, “You don’t have to swing at every pitch.”
“No hardware” is a good, Increasing Returns type of business. If UBER sticks with it the premise of this thread is moot.
But I have to assume that the Teslas with the TVDE sticker in Portugal are part of the UBER ride-hailing business. Would UBER accept self driving Teslas?
Hertz had a good idea and terrible execution. They jumped in whole hog without first testing the waters, a good reason to fire the previous CEO.
Given the relative differences in the regulatory frameworks of the U.S. and most European countries (and the EU itself), they’re going to be a considerable laggard in allowing autonomous tech. I think that it’s pretty much a no-brainer that by the time self driving Teslas actually exist and are legal to operate autonomously in Portugal, a non-trivial chunk of Uber’s driving business in the U.S. will be autonomous cars (whether Tesla’s or not).
Tesla simply isn’t going to make the Robotaxi version of FSD available to 3rd parties. They’re going to keep it for their own “Tesla Network.”
They could potentially license the technology to third party providers, who would have to provide the back-end server support, cost charging and collection infrastructure, support staff, etc. But, I don’t see that happening any time worth considering now.
The answer is clearly yes, with some nuance. Uber already tried to develop self-driving vehicles and couldn’t do it. But they are partnering with Waymo and IIRC others to do ride hailing with AVs.
So, it is clear to me that Uber would like to get rid of the driver and is looking at a future where AV riding hailing is common and Uber wants to be part of that future.
The hold up here is Tesla who have said clearly they don’t want to partner with other ride sharing companies.
That could change tomorrow, but as of right now, Uber and Tesla don’t seem interested in an AV ride sharing partnership.
Most important things, IMO, are a place to park the unneeded cars in their fleet during non-rush hour. This depot will also need to have EV chargers (probably) , cleaning services and perhaps a sensor calibration/testing station. And don’t forget the remote driver monitoring computers and emergency response team.
For a long time IBM did not sell its equipment, only leased it. The IBM Consent Decree of 1956 forced IBM to sell if buyers wanted to buy. As I recall, curiously it wasn’t IBM users that initiated the process that led to the Consent Decree but financial institutions jn the leasing business. This precedent might force Tesla to change its business model.
Unlikely, as there is more than viable competition in the autonomy and ride-hailing spaces. And should Tesla be in a monopolistic position, that itself would have been great news for investors. The whole purpose of a Consent Decree is to avoid anti-trust suits from the government. If Musk is still running Tesla, it’s unlikely he would give in to such pressure.
But, here’s to hoping the situation is such that the government feels Tesla is a monopoly.
