As Uber’s robot cars hit the streets in Pittsburgh, the fears of its human drivers have become a reality
Uber self-driving car Uber
It turns out, with all apologies to Philip K. Dick, robot cars have no need to fantasy of electrical sheep and can drive all night long. And this sci-fi-to-reality moment that many Uber drivers have feared was coming is now here:
The ride-hailing juggernaut’s customers can now hail a self-driving Uber in Pittsburgh.
But the debut of robot cars should not come as a surprise either, since Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick predicted in two thousand fourteen in an interview at the Code conference that the end of human drivers was eventually going to arrive.
“And when those bad boys are made, look, the way to think about it, the magic of self-driving vehicles, is that the reason Uber [is] expensive is because you’re not just paying for the car, you’re paying for the other dude in the car,” said Kalanick, in a moment of bare-knuckles candor. “And so, when there’s no other dude in the car the cost of taking an Uber anywhere becomes cheaper than possessing a vehicle . And of course that means safer rails, that means more environmentally friendly, that means a lot of things.”
“Look, this is the way the world is going,” Kalanick said, answering how he might explain it to Uber drivers who might lose their jobs down the road. “The world isn’t always excellent.”
After much negative blowback at the remarks, Kalanick attempted to assuage drivers with a tweet:
Drivers on @uber_nyc making $90k/year Driverless car is a multi-decade transition. Let’s take a breath and I’ll see you in the year 2035
But, only two years later and not 20, those robot cars are now deployed by Uber on the road in Pennsylvania.
It’s still not as futuristic as all that, however. Hailing a self-driving Uber is still a lot like hailing a regular Uber at the moment, albeit it’s only available to Uber’s most “loyal” customers at very first. If a self-driving car is available when one of these customers hails an UberX, they will be greeted by a car with close to two dozen cameras and sensors, along with one engineer and one “safety driver” in the front seats. Customers input their destination, the car drives itself there, with the safety driver only taking over if the system needs it to.
While this is the big and potentially scary moment, to be sure, a lot still has to happen before Uber drivers become entirely obsolete. Such as: Self-driving cars have to become legal to drive without a safety driver; users will have to want to get in a self-driving Uber; and, perhaps most importantly, Uber will have to buy and trick out enough cars with self-driving technology to make it worth the investment.
What’s most striking about the effort, however, is that it is most likely the very first time that Uber will actually own physical assets.
Before beginning to deploy its self-driving cars, Uber neither employed drivers nor possessed any cars, operating in a entirely virtual manner. That doesn’t necessarily mean Uber’s operating costs were low — they spend money on everything from research and development to discounting worldwide to hiring lobbyists — but it did mean that Uber figured out a way to avoid adding drivers’ employee benefits and car ownership, maintenance and insurance to those costs.
That’s clearly all about to switch.
As part of its partnership with Volvo, Uber bought one hundred XC90s that it hopes to retrofit with self-driving technology and have driving down the streets of Pittsburgh by the end of the year. While it’s probable that Uber bought the Volvos at a discount, the two thousand seventeen XC90s begin at $45,750. And that is without all the pricey self-driving technologies added on.
Presumably, if initial efforts work, Uber will proceed to buy cars and retrofit them with its own self-driving technology as the company ramps up its fleet of driverless cars. Whether it’s from Volvo or another automaker, Uber will likely have to buy, maintain and insure its own cars.
As elaborate as that will likely be for the company, it still may be more economical than paying drivers.
Today, Uber pays drivers sixty five to eighty percent of each fare, so for every dollar a driver brings in, Uber only takes home twenty to thirty five cents. Eventually, when drivers are substituted by robot cars, Uber could capture close to one hundred percent of the fare.
For example, if a driver performs one hundred rails at $Five a rail, Uber will take home $100. With Uber’s fresh “drivers” — the robot cars — the company will take home close to $500.
The robot cars will also likely do those one hundred rails in a shorter time, because it only has to stop to recharge or refuel. Self-driving cars can also potentially be on the road unceasing, racking up more fares in the same time, unlike human Uber drivers who are limited to driving twelve consecutive hours.
For startups, one significant metric to prove is quick growth, which is what investors are ultimately betting on. Generating four times more revenue per fare would certainly help that, even if the costs to growing the top line are also higher originally.
These cars, however, will also rack up more miles and consequently wear and rip much quicker than today’s cars, which in turn might mean Uber will have to substitute them quicker.
Still, the economics in favor of the robot cars could be compelling.
On June 25, 2016, in Fresh York City, for example, Uber had almost 30,000 drivers and performed close to 180,000 rails that day. It doesn’t necessarily mean that all its drivers were active, but if one self-driving Uber does one hundred rails a day — a very doable four rails an hour — then Uber would only need 1,800 cars.
The company is also not under much pressure to downright make up the cost of buying each car instantaneously, because it can spread out that cost over several years. But it will have to reallocate much of the capital it once spent on things like contesting in China and attracting and retaining drivers to buying actual cars.
While this is just a puny, single-city test for Uber — experiments that will be happening more and more across the world by a range of players — it creates a host of controversial but unpreventable issues from the prospects of computers increasingly substituting humans to questions about liability and safety to declines in car ownership to the cascade of industries (insurance, gas stations, automakers and more) that are affected by the switches.
And while we’re not in the “Blade Runner” future yet, it’s just one more step toward it.
As Uber’s robot cars hit the streets in Pittsburgh, the fears of its human drivers have become a reality
As Uber’s robot cars hit the streets in Pittsburgh, the fears of its human drivers have become a reality
Uber self-driving car Uber
It turns out, with all apologies to Philip K. Dick, robot cars have no need to wish of electrified sheep and can drive all night long. And this sci-fi-to-reality moment that many Uber drivers have feared was coming is now here:
The ride-hailing juggernaut’s customers can now hail a self-driving Uber in Pittsburgh.
But the debut of robot cars should not come as a surprise either, since Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick predicted in two thousand fourteen in an interview at the Code conference that the end of human drivers was eventually going to arrive.
“And when those bad boys are made, look, the way to think about it, the magic of self-driving vehicles, is that the reason Uber [is] expensive is because you’re not just paying for the car, you’re paying for the other dude in the car,” said Kalanick, in a moment of bare-knuckles candor. “And so, when there’s no other dude in the car the cost of taking an Uber anywhere becomes cheaper than wielding a vehicle . And of course that means safer rails, that means more environmentally friendly, that means a lot of things.”
“Look, this is the way the world is going,” Kalanick said, answering how he might explain it to Uber drivers who might lose their jobs down the road. “The world isn’t always fine.”
After much negative blowback at the remarks, Kalanick attempted to assuage drivers with a tweet:
Drivers on @uber_nyc making $90k/year Driverless car is a multi-decade transition. Let’s take a breath and I’ll see you in the year 2035
But, only two years later and not 20, those robot cars are now deployed by Uber on the road in Pennsylvania.
It’s still not as futuristic as all that, however. Hailing a self-driving Uber is still a lot like hailing a regular Uber at the moment, albeit it’s only available to Uber’s most “loyal” customers at very first. If a self-driving car is available when one of these customers hails an UberX, they will be greeted by a car with close to two dozen cameras and sensors, along with one engineer and one “safety driver” in the front seats. Customers input their destination, the car drives itself there, with the safety driver only taking over if the system needs it to.
While this is the big and potentially scary moment, to be sure, a lot still has to happen before Uber drivers become totally obsolete. Such as: Self-driving cars have to become legal to drive without a safety driver; users will have to want to get in a self-driving Uber; and, perhaps most importantly, Uber will have to buy and trick out enough cars with self-driving technology to make it worth the investment.
What’s most striking about the effort, however, is that it is most likely the very first time that Uber will actually own physical assets.
Before beginning to deploy its self-driving cars, Uber neither employed drivers nor possessed any cars, operating in a downright virtual manner. That doesn’t necessarily mean Uber’s operating costs were low — they spend money on everything from research and development to discounting worldwide to hiring lobbyists — but it did mean that Uber figured out a way to avoid adding drivers’ employee benefits and car ownership, maintenance and insurance to those costs.
That’s clearly all about to switch.
As part of its partnership with Volvo, Uber bought one hundred XC90s that it hopes to retrofit with self-driving technology and have driving down the streets of Pittsburgh by the end of the year. While it’s probable that Uber bought the Volvos at a discount, the two thousand seventeen XC90s commence at $45,750. And that is without all the pricey self-driving technologies added on.
Presumably, if initial efforts work, Uber will proceed to buy cars and retrofit them with its own self-driving technology as the company ramps up its fleet of driverless cars. Whether it’s from Volvo or another automaker, Uber will likely have to buy, maintain and insure its own cars.
As complicated as that will likely be for the company, it still may be more economical than paying drivers.
Today, Uber pays drivers sixty five to eighty percent of each fare, so for every dollar a driver brings in, Uber only takes home twenty to thirty five cents. Eventually, when drivers are substituted by robot cars, Uber could capture close to one hundred percent of the fare.
For example, if a driver performs one hundred rails at $Five a rail, Uber will take home $100. With Uber’s fresh “drivers” — the robot cars — the company will take home close to $500.
The robot cars will also likely do those one hundred rails in a shorter time, because it only has to stop to recharge or refuel. Self-driving cars can also potentially be on the road unceasing, racking up more fares in the same time, unlike human Uber drivers who are limited to driving twelve consecutive hours.
For startups, one significant metric to prove is prompt growth, which is what investors are ultimately betting on. Generating four times more revenue per fare would certainly help that, even if the costs to growing the top line are also higher originally.
These cars, however, will also rack up more miles and consequently wear and rip much quicker than today’s cars, which in turn might mean Uber will have to substitute them quicker.
Still, the economics in favor of the robot cars could be compelling.
On June 25, 2016, in Fresh York City, for example, Uber had almost 30,000 drivers and performed close to 180,000 rails that day. It doesn’t necessarily mean that all its drivers were active, but if one self-driving Uber does one hundred rails a day — a very doable four rails an hour — then Uber would only need 1,800 cars.
The company is also not under much pressure to downright make up the cost of buying each car instantly, because it can spread out that cost over several years. But it will have to reallocate much of the capital it once spent on things like challenging in China and attracting and retaining drivers to buying actual cars.
While this is just a petite, single-city test for Uber — experiments that will be happening more and more across the world by a range of players — it creates a host of controversial but inescapable issues from the prospects of computers increasingly substituting humans to questions about liability and safety to declines in car ownership to the cascade of industries (insurance, gas stations, automakers and more) that are affected by the switches.
And while we’re not in the “Blade Runner” future yet, it’s just one more step toward it.
As Uber’s robot cars hit the streets in Pittsburgh, the fears of its human drivers have become a reality
As Uber’s robot cars hit the streets in Pittsburgh, the fears of its human drivers have become a reality
Uber self-driving car Uber
It turns out, with all apologies to Philip K. Dick, robot cars have no need to desire of electrical sheep and can drive all night long. And this sci-fi-to-reality moment that many Uber drivers have feared was coming is now here:
The ride-hailing juggernaut’s customers can now hail a self-driving Uber in Pittsburgh.
But the debut of robot cars should not come as a surprise either, since Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick predicted in two thousand fourteen in an interview at the Code conference that the end of human drivers was eventually going to arrive.
“And when those bad boys are made, look, the way to think about it, the magic of self-driving vehicles, is that the reason Uber [is] expensive is because you’re not just paying for the car, you’re paying for the other dude in the car,” said Kalanick, in a moment of bare-knuckles candor. “And so, when there’s no other dude in the car the cost of taking an Uber anywhere becomes cheaper than wielding a vehicle . And of course that means safer rails, that means more environmentally friendly, that means a lot of things.”
“Look, this is the way the world is going,” Kalanick said, answering how he might explain it to Uber drivers who might lose their jobs down the road. “The world isn’t always fine.”
After much negative blowback at the remarks, Kalanick attempted to assuage drivers with a tweet:
Drivers on @uber_nyc making $90k/year Driverless car is a multi-decade transition. Let’s take a breath and I’ll see you in the year 2035
But, only two years later and not 20, those robot cars are now deployed by Uber on the road in Pennsylvania.
It’s still not as futuristic as all that, however. Hailing a self-driving Uber is still a lot like hailing a regular Uber at the moment, albeit it’s only available to Uber’s most “loyal” customers at very first. If a self-driving car is available when one of these customers hails an UberX, they will be greeted by a car with close to two dozen cameras and sensors, along with one engineer and one “safety driver” in the front seats. Customers input their destination, the car drives itself there, with the safety driver only taking over if the system needs it to.
While this is the big and potentially scary moment, to be sure, a lot still has to happen before Uber drivers become downright obsolete. Such as: Self-driving cars have to become legal to drive without a safety driver; users will have to want to get in a self-driving Uber; and, perhaps most importantly, Uber will have to buy and trick out enough cars with self-driving technology to make it worth the investment.
What’s most striking about the effort, tho’, is that it is very likely the very first time that Uber will actually own physical assets.
Before beginning to deploy its self-driving cars, Uber neither employed drivers nor wielded any cars, operating in a fully virtual manner. That doesn’t necessarily mean Uber’s operating costs were low — they spend money on everything from research and development to discounting worldwide to hiring lobbyists — but it did mean that Uber figured out a way to avoid adding drivers’ employee benefits and car ownership, maintenance and insurance to those costs.
That’s clearly all about to switch.
As part of its partnership with Volvo, Uber bought one hundred XC90s that it hopes to retrofit with self-driving technology and have driving down the streets of Pittsburgh by the end of the year. While it’s probable that Uber bought the Volvos at a discount, the two thousand seventeen XC90s begin at $45,750. And that is without all the pricey self-driving technologies added on.
Presumably, if initial efforts work, Uber will proceed to buy cars and retrofit them with its own self-driving technology as the company ramps up its fleet of driverless cars. Whether it’s from Volvo or another automaker, Uber will likely have to buy, maintain and insure its own cars.
As elaborate as that will likely be for the company, it still may be more economical than paying drivers.
Today, Uber pays drivers sixty five to eighty percent of each fare, so for every dollar a driver brings in, Uber only takes home twenty to thirty five cents. Eventually, when drivers are substituted by robot cars, Uber could capture close to one hundred percent of the fare.
For example, if a driver performs one hundred rails at $Five a rail, Uber will take home $100. With Uber’s fresh “drivers” — the robot cars — the company will take home close to $500.
The robot cars will also likely do those one hundred rails in a shorter time, because it only has to stop to recharge or refuel. Self-driving cars can also potentially be on the road nonstop, racking up more fares in the same time, unlike human Uber drivers who are limited to driving twelve consecutive hours.
For startups, one significant metric to prove is prompt growth, which is what investors are ultimately betting on. Generating four times more revenue per fare would certainly help that, even if the costs to growing the top line are also higher originally.
These cars, however, will also rack up more miles and consequently wear and rip much quicker than today’s cars, which in turn might mean Uber will have to substitute them swifter.
Still, the economics in favor of the robot cars could be compelling.
On June 25, 2016, in Fresh York City, for example, Uber had almost 30,000 drivers and performed close to 180,000 rails that day. It doesn’t necessarily mean that all its drivers were active, but if one self-driving Uber does one hundred rails a day — a very doable four rails an hour — then Uber would only need 1,800 cars.
The company is also not under much pressure to entirely make up the cost of buying each car instantly, because it can spread out that cost over several years. But it will have to reallocate much of the capital it once spent on things like challenging in China and attracting and retaining drivers to buying actual cars.
While this is just a petite, single-city test for Uber — experiments that will be happening more and more across the world by a range of players — it creates a host of controversial but inescapable issues from the prospects of computers increasingly substituting humans to questions about liability and safety to declines in car ownership to the cascade of industries (insurance, gas stations, automakers and more) that are affected by the switches.
And while we’re not in the “Blade Runner” future yet, it’s just one more step toward it.
As Uber’s robot cars hit the streets in Pittsburgh, the fears of its human drivers have become a reality
As Uber’s robot cars hit the streets in Pittsburgh, the fears of its human drivers have become a reality
Uber self-driving car Uber
It turns out, with all apologies to Philip K. Dick, robot cars have no need to wish of electrified sheep and can drive all night long. And this sci-fi-to-reality moment that many Uber drivers have feared was coming is now here:
The ride-hailing juggernaut’s customers can now hail a self-driving Uber in Pittsburgh.
But the debut of robot cars should not come as a surprise either, since Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick predicted in two thousand fourteen in an interview at the Code conference that the end of human drivers was eventually going to arrive.
“And when those bad boys are made, look, the way to think about it, the magic of self-driving vehicles, is that the reason Uber [is] expensive is because you’re not just paying for the car, you’re paying for the other dude in the car,” said Kalanick, in a moment of bare-knuckles candor. “And so, when there’s no other dude in the car the cost of taking an Uber anywhere becomes cheaper than wielding a vehicle . And of course that means safer rails, that means more environmentally friendly, that means a lot of things.”
“Look, this is the way the world is going,” Kalanick said, answering how he might explain it to Uber drivers who might lose their jobs down the road. “The world isn’t always superb.”
After much negative blowback at the remarks, Kalanick attempted to assuage drivers with a tweet:
Drivers on @uber_nyc making $90k/year Driverless car is a multi-decade transition. Let’s take a breath and I’ll see you in the year 2035
But, only two years later and not 20, those robot cars are now deployed by Uber on the road in Pennsylvania.
It’s still not as futuristic as all that, however. Hailing a self-driving Uber is still a lot like hailing a regular Uber at the moment, albeit it’s only available to Uber’s most “loyal” customers at very first. If a self-driving car is available when one of these customers hails an UberX, they will be greeted by a car with close to two dozen cameras and sensors, along with one engineer and one “safety driver” in the front seats. Customers input their destination, the car drives itself there, with the safety driver only taking over if the system needs it to.
While this is the big and potentially scary moment, to be sure, a lot still has to happen before Uber drivers become fully obsolete. Such as: Self-driving cars have to become legal to drive without a safety driver; users will have to want to get in a self-driving Uber; and, perhaps most importantly, Uber will have to buy and trick out enough cars with self-driving technology to make it worth the investment.
What’s most striking about the effort, however, is that it is very likely the very first time that Uber will actually own physical assets.
Before beginning to deploy its self-driving cars, Uber neither employed drivers nor wielded any cars, operating in a downright virtual manner. That doesn’t necessarily mean Uber’s operating costs were low — they spend money on everything from research and development to discounting worldwide to hiring lobbyists — but it did mean that Uber figured out a way to avoid adding drivers’ employee benefits and car ownership, maintenance and insurance to those costs.
That’s clearly all about to switch.
As part of its partnership with Volvo, Uber bought one hundred XC90s that it hopes to retrofit with self-driving technology and have driving down the streets of Pittsburgh by the end of the year. While it’s probable that Uber bought the Volvos at a discount, the two thousand seventeen XC90s begin at $45,750. And that is without all the pricey self-driving technologies added on.
Presumably, if initial efforts work, Uber will proceed to buy cars and retrofit them with its own self-driving technology as the company ramps up its fleet of driverless cars. Whether it’s from Volvo or another automaker, Uber will likely have to buy, maintain and insure its own cars.
As complicated as that will likely be for the company, it still may be more economical than paying drivers.
Today, Uber pays drivers sixty five to eighty percent of each fare, so for every dollar a driver brings in, Uber only takes home twenty to thirty five cents. Eventually, when drivers are substituted by robot cars, Uber could capture close to one hundred percent of the fare.
For example, if a driver performs one hundred rails at $Five a rail, Uber will take home $100. With Uber’s fresh “drivers” — the robot cars — the company will take home close to $500.
The robot cars will also likely do those one hundred rails in a shorter time, because it only has to stop to recharge or refuel. Self-driving cars can also potentially be on the road nonstop, racking up more fares in the same time, unlike human Uber drivers who are limited to driving twelve consecutive hours.
For startups, one significant metric to prove is rapid growth, which is what investors are ultimately betting on. Generating four times more revenue per fare would certainly help that, even if the costs to growing the top line are also higher originally.
These cars, however, will also rack up more miles and consequently wear and rip much quicker than today’s cars, which in turn might mean Uber will have to substitute them swifter.
Still, the economics in favor of the robot cars could be compelling.
On June 25, 2016, in Fresh York City, for example, Uber had almost 30,000 drivers and performed close to 180,000 rails that day. It doesn’t necessarily mean that all its drivers were active, but if one self-driving Uber does one hundred rails a day — a very doable four rails an hour — then Uber would only need 1,800 cars.
The company is also not under much pressure to downright make up the cost of buying each car instantaneously, because it can spread out that cost over several years. But it will have to reallocate much of the capital it once spent on things like challenging in China and attracting and retaining drivers to buying actual cars.
While this is just a puny, single-city test for Uber — experiments that will be happening more and more across the world by a range of players — it creates a host of controversial but inescapable issues from the prospects of computers increasingly substituting humans to questions about liability and safety to declines in car ownership to the cascade of industries (insurance, gas stations, automakers and more) that are affected by the switches.
And while we’re not in the “Blade Runner” future yet, it’s just one more step toward it.
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