Uber lost more than $800 million in third quarter 2016

[AITheAnswerAI]

Automatic Cars are better than actual drivers and thus safer. Money paid out in any accidents would be no different than your typical insurance policy that covers all the terrible things you named. Unless people are not ready to get onboard with the driverless car movement there is no way this loses Uber money.

Once the technology is solidified after several years, perhaps. However the first couple years of it being rolled out, no way i'm trusting that shyt.

Also, how can it account for other shytty drivers? As a human, you can drive around something, drive out of the way etc. What if the fukking automated car just stops when there's a danger, and you're a sitting duck for some other car plowing into you?There's been times where I had to make a quick move to get around some shyt and avoid being hit, I dunno if an automated car can do that safely.

 

[Giselle]

I explained it in another post. A car is a fixed cost. Meaning after X amount of rides, the car will pay for itself. Currently uber pays drivers $8 out of every $10 or 80% of their revenue.

If the car costs them $30,000 and makes them $15,000a a year, it will take them 2 years to break even on the car (a little more because gas/maintenance/insurance will likely be a variable cost of ~$5,000 or so but that means the car is still returning them $10,000 a year). What's the life cycle of the car? Let's say 10 years. So, if it's making them $10k a year (subtracting the $5k variable cots mentioned before) in 10 years the car will make them $100,000. Subtract the $30k fixed cost of the car and the car profits them $70,000 in it's life cycle. This is a very rough and crude caluclation of the math. However no matter how you slice it the driverless car will invariably provide them more profit than drivers. They lose 80% of their revenue to paying drivers.
Multiply $7,000 profit per year, per car by the number of cars. So if they have 100,000 cars, they'll profit $7,000*100,000 = $700 million dollars a year profit. (currently they have over 1 million drivers globally)

It's possible they can even cut their prices with driverless cars.

The thing is, the cars will probably cost way more than 30k. Who is going to drive the cars to pick up the people? Will the people have to go there and get the cars themselves? If so how will they get there when they are the ones who need a ride? Or will the company be building garages every few miles where people can esily get to them, which will cost more money.

Self driving cars don't actually drive themselves. To my understanding, it is like auto pilot A person still has to be in the car helping it to operate and not everyone who needs a ride has a driver's so they legally wouldn't be able to be in the car by themselves when they don't even have permission to operate a car.. They will also need to raise the prices to help cover the costs which then would probably be the same price as a taxi, so people may as well stick with taxis if it comes to this.

 

[Cynic]

i dont understand how theyre fukkn LOSING money tho

like bruh u dont even need to pay for the fukkin cars

its just a fukkin app tf??

They got 3.5 Billon from Saudi Arabia too..

Servers, payment processing, developers, licensing maps software

Nevermind legal and marketing costs.... they are in growth mode and aren't public

So we shall see what happens since most startups are staying longer in gestation

Amazon loses money because their entire business model is to have razor thin profit margins. They made like $72 billion one year and took home $273 million. Which is absolutely nothing considering the percentages. I could be wrong on the numbers but, it was in that general vicinity. They do it to cut everybody out from competing, to be the only one in their "space" (i.e. being the biggest ecommerce shop on the web), so they can get as big as possible as fast as possible. VCs keep the company afloat in the meantime. Jeff Bezos is a dikkhead. You never hear anyone talk about him in the same esteem as Jobs or Gates or Zuck or even Sergey and Larry. Horrible, horrible guy.

No... their business model is expansion ...it's an investment for the future rather than resting on your laurels
like Blockbuster

Your figures are way off $30 billion revenue and ~900 million profit

Jobs was a maniacal slave driver... don't let marketing fool you. Ask anyone who worked at Apple
during his tenure ... he was just as ruthless and even more temperamental but that's the price of
advancement.

VCs probably cashed out the day Amazon went public... it's all institutional funds at that point

 

[L&HH]

The thing is, the cars will probably cost way more than 30k. Who is going to drive the cars to pick up the people? Will the people have to go there and get the cars themselves? If so how will they get there when they are the ones who need a ride? Or will the company be building garages every few miles where people can esily get to them, which will cost more money.

Self driving cars don't actually drive themselves. To my understanding, it is like auto pilot A person still has to be in the car helping it to operate and not everyone who needs a ride has a driver's so they legally wouldn't be able to be in the car by themselves when they don't even have permission to operate a car.. They will also need to raise the prices to help cover the costs which then would probably be the same price as a taxi, so people may as well stick with taxis if it comes to this.

Self driving cars do drive themselves. They are completely autonomous, there's no need for a driver in the seat. The reason they're using drivers now is because they're just beta testing it and it's still not legal everywhere (although it's not illegal either) (except in Michigan where they just passed a law that it's legal).

As far as the cars costing more than $30k, it doesn't matter how much the car costs (to an extent, obviously one car can't cost $1 million as they'll never make a return). The key is that it's a "capital" cost. Meaning you pay it once, and then everything the car makes goes back to making back that capital cost until the cost of the car is paid off. Then once it's paid everything after that is profit. Current full time drivers from Uber make $1000 a month. So if a fulltime driverless (autonomous) car were to make that same amount it'd be making $52,000 a year. So if the car cost $100,000, in the the first two years the car would make no money but then from year 3 on it'd be making $50,000 profit (minus gas/maintenance/insurance). Btw autonomous cars do not cost $100,000. Estimates are that by 2025 driverless tech can be added to a car for $7,000 - $10,000 and may eventually go as low as $3,000 in much later years.

They will be able to decrease the cost because they don't have to pay drivers. Currently a full time driver is a reoccurring cost of $4000 a month for uber. Meaning from now to 5 years from now (or however long they work there) the driver would have cost uber $4000 (60) or $240,000 in 5 years. A driverless car would have a one time capital cost (the price of the car: it could be $10k, $20k, $50k, $100k, as long as it isn't some insanely large number which it isn't) and then after that cost is paid off instead of costing uber $4000 a month it'd be making them $4000 a month. So if it takes two years ($100,000 cost of the car) for the driverless/autonomus car to make back it's capital cost in year 3 it'd be making uber $4000 a month. In 5 years a driver would cost uber $240k and a driver less car would make then $150k. That's a $400,000 difference.

 

[Big Boss]

@Big Boss

It's over

 

[MalikX]

[

Servers, payment processing, developers, licensing maps software

Nevermind legal and marketing costs.... they are in growth mode and aren't public

So we shall see what happens since most startups are staying longer in gestation




No... their business model is expansion ...it's an investment for the future rather than resting on your laurels
like Blockbuster

Your figures are way off $30 billion revenue and ~900 million profit

Jobs was a maniacal slave driver... don't let marketing fool you. Ask anyone who worked at Apple
during his tenure ... he was just as ruthless and even more temperamental but that's the price of
advancement.

VCs probably cashed out the day Amazon went public... it's all institutional funds at that point

Nah. I'm right. Its just the numbers from 2014.

Amazon Was Unstoppable—Until This Year. What Happened?

I said $72 billion revenue and $273 million net. Turns out it was $74 billion and $273 million.....so I was extremely close. Not way off. Like I said....razor thin margins. Not even 1 percent.

You didn't read my post all the way through. I said they're trying to expand. By keeping their prices disgustingly low, it prices everyone out and eradicates competition, ergo allowing Amazon to grow bigger than everyone else as fast as possible until the control the entire market. They don't care about losing money in the short term. They care about pricing every other retailer out so they're the ONLY player in the long term. Read "The Everything Store". It goes deep into Amazon's story. This isn't my commentary on Amazon. Jeff Bezos is quoted saying this verbatim multiple times throughout the book.

 

[Motife43]

Here in Chicago Uber will lease you the car. I believe my cousin pays 700/mo (i know) and can use the car however he pleases as long as he works his schedule. He claims to make about 1000/wk .

What the hell is he driving for $700/mo? Please tell me it's a luxury car...

 

[tater]

Yea. In just 10 years Doctor Robots will put the medical industry on notice

We cant even replace construction workers (and wont be able to) but you think this has a serious chance of happening

Yea...I'm not talking about this happening in 10 years . You're just being obtuse.

ETA: and I don't mean ALL of these jobs will be replaced by AI, but it will significantly reduce the amount of people necessary to perform them. Obviously this results in less jobs or work, it would have to be supplemented with something. We already see this happening within the law profession so let's not act like I'm talking about some alternate universe in the twilight zone.

 

[Cynic]

[


Nah. I'm right. Its just the numbers from 2014.

Amazon Was Unstoppable—Until This Year. What Happened?

I said $72 billion revenue and $273 million net. Turns out it was $74 billion and $273 million.....so I was extremely close. Not way off. Like I said....razor thin margins. Not even 1 percent.

You didn't read my post all the way through. I said they're trying to expand. By keeping their prices disgustingly low, it prices everyone out and eradicates competition, ergo allowing Amazon to grow bigger than everyone else as fast as possible until the control the entire market. They don't care about losing money in the short term. They care about pricing every other retailer out so they're the ONLY player in the long term. Read "The Everything Store". It goes deep into Amazon's story. This isn't my commentary on Amazon. Jeff Bezos is quoted saying this verbatim multiple times throughout the book.

It's 2016.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/29/technology/amazon-earnings-profit.html

You can check the figures yourself on their earning call....
As long as they offer good value for both consumers and shareholders alike who cares ?

 

[LV Koopa]

Yea...I'm not talking about this happening in 10 years . You're just being obtuse.

ETA: and I don't mean ALL of these jobs will be replaced by AI, but it will significantly reduce the amount of people necessary to perform them. Obviously this results in less jobs or work, it would have to be supplemented with something. We already see this happening within the law profession so let's not act like I'm talking about some alternate universe in the twilight zone.

What job in the law profession is being replaced? Certainly not Lawyers or paralegals

 

[Originalman]

Once the technology is solidified after several years, perhaps. However the first couple years of it being rolled out, no way i'm trusting that shyt.

Also, how can it account for other shytty drivers? As a human, you can drive around something, drive out of the way etc. What if the fukking automated car just stops when there's a danger, and you're a sitting duck for some other car plowing into you?There's been times where I had to make a quick move to get around some shyt and avoid being hit, I dunno if an automated car can do that safely.

Breh these kats don't understand that one the insurance rates will be higher than regular cars and that this technology ain't gonna be that easy to roll out. We are decades from mass automated cars on the road.

Just off of the incredible cost just to keep these cars running is something that folks aren't even taking into account.

You know why the airforce got more B-52 bombers than them state of the art B-2s? The up keep cost is fukking murder. Along with cost of having one B-2 compared to them old B-52.

Had the same shyt with them F-22s. The government was like these hoes high as fukk and that up keep is high too. Lets just get some of them old planes instead.

You gonna see the same shyt with this new B-21 bomber as well. The government wants 100 of those and to have like 20 be able to fly themselves. But we know that number will be heavily decreased cause of the initial cost and the upkeep.

 

[4North1Side2]

Self driving cars do drive themselves. They are completely autonomous, there's no need for a driver in the seat. The reason they're using drivers now is because they're just beta testing it and it's still not legal everywhere (although it's not illegal either) (except in Michigan where they just passed a law that it's legal).

As far as the cars costing more than $30k, it doesn't matter how much the car costs (to an extent, obviously one car can't cost $1 million as they'll never make a return). The key is that it's a "capital" cost. Meaning you pay it once, and then everything the car makes goes back to making back that capital cost until the cost of the car is paid off. Then once it's paid everything after that is profit. Current full time drivers from Uber make $1000 a month. So if a fulltime driverless (autonomous) car were to make that same amount it'd be making $52,000 a year. So if the car cost $100,000, in the the first two years the car would make no money but then from year 3 on it'd be making $50,000 profit (minus gas/maintenance/insurance). Btw autonomous cars do not cost $100,000. Estimates are that by 2025 driverless tech can be added to a car for $7,000 - $10,000 and may eventually go as low as $3,000 in much later years.

They will be able to decrease the cost because they don't have to pay drivers. Currently a full time driver is a reoccurring cost of $4000 a month for uber. Meaning from now to 5 years from now (or however long they work there) the driver would have cost uber $4000 (60) or $240,000 in 5 years. A driverless car would have a one time capital cost (the price of the car: it could be $10k, $20k, $50k, $100k, as long as it isn't some insanely large number which it isn't) and then after that cost is paid off instead of costing uber $4000 a month it'd be making them $4000 a month. So if it takes two years ($100,000 cost of the car) for the driverless/autonomus car to make back it's capital cost in year 3 it'd be making uber $4000 a month. In 5 years a driver would cost uber $240k and a driver less car would make then $150k. That's a $400,000 difference.

Ubers self driving cars are not completely self Autonomous, they have a long way off.

The first cars on the road which were Ford fusions cost $750,000. The volvos cost $400,000.

 

[Originalman]

Yea...I'm not talking about this happening in 10 years . You're just being obtuse.

ETA: and I don't mean ALL of these jobs will be replaced by AI, but it will significantly reduce the amount of people necessary to perform them. Obviously this results in less jobs or work, it would have to be supplemented with something. We already see this happening within the law profession so let's not act like I'm talking about some alternate universe in the twilight zone.

Breh number of jobs have been reduced even without automation. Any time you have high labor rates engineers and managers will look to reduce how many people need to do a job. From implementing assembly lines (when it was humans moving parts and units) to doing one piece flows or batch processes.

You know when a process, industrial, manufacturing engineer is doing process improvements one of the first things they look at is reducing the head count. The whole field of industrial engineering was developed to reduce cycle times by motion of work, sequence of work and travel time on the floor.

So even when you go in a mcdonalds where there is little automation over the last 20 years jobs have been eliminated and the work process has been improved to move faster.

 

[tater]

What job in the law profession is being replaced? Certainly not Lawyers or paralegals

Armies of Expensive Lawyers, Replaced by Cheaper Software

This has been happening. They don't need as many lawyers anymore because a lot of document analysis has been taken over by computers. This is just one of the factors hurting those in the profession. They already have low law employment rates out of school unless you go to a t20 school. I think you're being rather short sighted with this. Tech will create more tech jobs, but they do more with less.

Breh number of jobs have been reduced even without automation. Any time you have high labor rates engineers and managers will look to reduce how many people need to do a job. From implementing assembly lines (when it was humans moving parts and units) to doing one piece flows or batch processes.

You know when a process, industrial, manufacturing engineer is doing process improvements one of the first things they look at is reducing the head count. The whole field of industrial engineering was developed to reduce cycle times by motion of work, sequence of work and travel time on the floor.

So even when you go in a mcdonalds where there is little automation over the last 20 years jobs have been eliminated and the work process has been improved to move faster.

This is definitely true. Tech will just speed up the process. I'm not preaching some doomsday conspiracy theory or anything, but we need to be prepared for the lessening of work available for people due to automation, streamlining, and efficiency.

I've said this since I knew anything about UBI or capitalism, socialism, etc., someone has to take out the trash and sweep the floors. Everyone isn't capable of becoming a doctor or engineer. If we replace these peoples livelihoods with machines what will they do? Just like this college bubble, everyone wasn't meant to go, that's why degrees have become so devalued. That's another thread, but anyhoo...

Capitalism thrives on doing more work with less people. If you think they're not looking to replace the majority of workers you're mistaken!

Spoiler

hopefully the zombie apocalypse happens before any of this can take place

 

[Giselle]

Self driving cars do drive themselves. They are completely autonomous, there's no need for a driver in the seat. The reason they're using drivers now is because they're just beta testing it and it's still not legal everywhere (although it's not illegal either) (except in Michigan where they just passed a law that it's legal).

Where is the write up and video proof on this? From my understanding it is like auto pilot on a plane.