My wife's Mercedes knows the difference between a yellow line and a white line. It gives her a "bump" if she gets close to a yellow one.
the self-driving Uber that killed a pedestrian disabled the on-board emergency braking system:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...ore-fatal-crasAs to why the software did not engage the brakes on its own, NTSB noted that this passive approach is actually an intentional part of the design. The agency explained that the vehicle, a modified 2017 Volvo XC90, comes "factory equipped" with automatic emergency braking — but that Uber's system disables this function and others when it's in use.
"According to Uber," the agency said, "emergency braking maneuvers are not enabled while the vehicle is under computer control, to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior. The vehicle operator is relied on to intervene and take action. The system is not designed to alert the operator."
Disabling the safety equipment in your car isn't a flaw, it's a feature!
transportation monopoly on a global scale would be quite a prize, but at some point you'd think investors would get tired of flushing billions down the toilet:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019...rofitable.htmlThe critical characteristic of ridesharing companies (such as US based Uber and Lyft, or Asian based Didi, Grab or Ola) has nothing to do with smartphone apps or compe ive advantage or operational efficiency. It is the fact that they are backed by billions in cash from venture capitalists who have been willing to subsidize years of massive losses. Instead of consumers choosing the most efficient car service, those subsidies led them to choose the company that didn’t charge them for the actual cost of the service, and provided far more capacity than could be economically justified. Instead of funding the companies with the strongest sustainable compe ive advantage, those subsidies led investors to fund the companies with the artificially inflated growth rates that suggested a path to quasi-monopoly market dominance.
Under private ownership, the claims that the ridesharing companies had created unprecedented levels of economic value ($70 billion for Uber, $15 billion for Lyft) had never been subject to any broad-based analyst or investor scrutiny. This series has argued that the unprecedented accomplishment of ridesharing is that its entire valuation was manufactured out of thin air. The valuation of other large Silicon Valley based companies (Amazon, Facebook) may be seriously inflated, but they had clearly established legitimate economic foundations, including powerful product and operational innovations, profits and strong cash flow.
This series has do ented that Uber has no economic foundation, aside from its predatory use of billions in subsidies. None of its claimed technological innovations allowed it to produce car service at lower cost than in bents, or create sustainable advantages over future compe ors. It would still require billions in new efficiencies to reach operational breakeven, and billions more to economically justify the funding its investors provided
Hubert Horan's takedown of the Lyft IPO prospectus is ruthless.
thanks for that link.
U been repeatedly losing $4B / year
L been repeatedly losing $1B / year
Where will U/L get the revenue to go profitable?
============
2017 Uber Driver Survey Results: Earnings, Satisfaction, and Demographics
https://therideshareguy.com/rsg-2017...-demographics/
Drivers love to think their gross is what they make, minus gas, and badly underestimate expenses.
IRS, other orgs place TCO of car ownership at $0.50 - $0.60 / mile.
most welcome, CC
speaking of Uber/Lyft, I went to Fleetwood Mac at the Erwin center a few weeks ago. Those suckers completely gridlocked all traffic including themselves. Lyft/Uber assholes were three deep on the 35 access road at Red River waiting for pickups and nobody could move.
Heh. Just wrote about these in the AOC thread. One of the biggest vaporware situations of our time.
https://blog.piekniewski.info/2018/1...winter-update/While on the self-driving car subject, one of the main criticisms of my original AI winter post was that I omitted Waymo from my discussion, them being the unquestionable leader in autonomy. This criticism was a bit unjustified in that I did include and discussed Waymo extensively in my other posts [1], but in these cir stances it appears prudent to mention what is going on there. Luckily a recent very good piece of investigative journalism shines some light on the matter. Apparently Waymo cars tested in Phoenix area had trouble with the most basic driving situations such as merging onto a freeway or making a left turn, [1].
Some independent observations appear to confirm this assessment. As much as I agree that Waymo is probably the most advanced in this game, this does not mean they are anywhere near to actually deploying anything seriously, and even further away from making such deployment economically feasible (contrary to what is suggested in occasional puff pieces such as this one). Aside from a periodic PR nonsense, Waymo does not seem to be revealing much, though recently some baffling reports of past shenanigans in google chauffeur (which later became Waymo) surfaced, involving Anthony Levandowski who is responsible for the whole Uber-Waymo fiasco. To add some comical aspect to the Waymo-Uber story, apparently an unrelated engineer managed to invalidate the patent that Uber got sued over, spending altogether 6000 dollars in fees. This is probably how much Uber payed their patent attorneys for a minute of their work...
And these test conditions are typically optimal.
Yeah Uber is a ponzi scheme that targets drivers who don't know how to manage money.
I'm not sure why Uber doesn't just raise its prices. When I need to get to the airport and my alternatives are either pay out the ass for terminal parking or call some ty taxi company with a moron behind the wheel who takes some longer route in order to increase the charge, I'm still calling Uber.
Great Cory Doctorow thread
Uber still shows no signs of profitability
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021...8-billion.htmlLast Thursday, Uber announced a full year 2020 GAAP loss of $6.8 billion with a GAAP net margin of (-60%). As discussed in the context of the mid-year results presented in Part 23, [1] Covid-19 significantly reduced Uber revenues, just as the pandemic has devasted dozens of other urban services and transport businesses.
The huge ($4.7 billion, 43%) year-over-year decline in Uber’s core car service revenue was partially offset by a 93% increase in delivery revenue, but the central story here remains unchanged. Uber’s rides business never had any hope of earning sustainable profits, even without the virus. The delivery volumes added have substantially worse margins and have done nothing to create a path to future profitability.
2020 losses would have been much worse but for massive cost cutting. Uber abandoned its entire “Advanced Technology Group” (robotcars, flying cars, etc.). Uber’s investments in new businesses had been the centerpiece of its long-term growth narrative but had no profit potential, Uber had to provide $400 million in funding to the startup that took it off its hands. [2] It also slashed expenditures not directly supporting its current car service and delivery operations. Research and Development spending was reduced by $2.6 billion (54%) and overall operating expense fell 30%.
As previous posts in this series have discussed, Uber projections use deliberately misleading metrics. Discussions of the overall company use a measure improperly called “EBITDA” which excludes lots of expenses other than interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, such as the $4.7 billion in stock-based employee compensation. Discussions of rides, delivery and other business segments use an “Adjusted EBITDA” measure which excludes a wide range of other expenses including marketing incentives, Uber’s IT infrastructure and all general corporate support functions.
One can determine the real meaning of these mislabeled metrics if one examines the footnotes in Uber’s SEC filings, but Uber knows reporters for mainstream business publications will not do that. These reporters continue to tell readers that “Uber has said it expects to become profitable by that measure by year-end” since they do not understand the difference between “profitability” and “contribution after a large portion of actual operating expenses have been excluded.” Nor do any of these reporters make any attempt to explain how Uber might achieve the billions in P&L improvements needed to achieve even these badly flawed “profit” targets.
Unsurprisingly for a company that has never made a profit in twelve years and cannot explain how it ever could become profitable in the future, Uber’s stock value has increased nearly 90% in the last three months.
Last edited by Winehole23; 02-16-2021 at 10:21 AM.
Everyone knows the true test of human intelligence is after-tax income.
Uber drivers aren't Uber owners. There's no causation here.
not sure what you mean. the claims made are that:
1. Uber's Q1 claimed profits depend on financial chicanery
2. Uber's Q2 profits were made by ripping off drivers and fares to the extent that Uber is now worse than the system it broke.
"In Q2 alone, Uber transferred $2.8b from its drivers to its shareholders."
seems consistent to me, still not sure what your point is.
6 years later and not even close to self driving cars
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