Yes, they COULD licence the tech from someone else, but the price would be too high to make it worth doing.

My feeling is that if someone else has self driving technology, Uber has no way of adding value. Tesla, Waymo, whoever - will simply run a taxi service themselves and reap more profits.

It's possible that a smaller self driving company might not have the capital to start an actual fleet, but I feel like investors would go for it as it'd be a pretty sure bet, provided the technology is solid.

I think Uber outright acquiring another company that has the technology is more likely - again, that company would probably also just start their own taxi service, but it might work if they have different goals - the owners may simply be looking for a short term payout.

Uber knows that. All they have is a userbase with an app installed, which isn't of as much value as it is for say, a social media app, because there's no network effect. You don't have to use the same taxi service as your friends do. People will be more than happy to switch to a different service if the price is competitive and it doesn't have a bad reputation.

It's not impossible they'd licence self driving tech, but I doubt the economics of it.

I wonder if Uber will have the capital or credit to roll into acquiring a fleet of self-driving cars by the time the tech is even ready. Remember, they don't have any fixed transit assets now -- their driver contractors are all on the hook for that.

Whoever is first to market will compete directly against Uber. There is no point in selling autonomous cars to Uber.

Not necessarily. There are a lot of reasons for a car manufacturer not to enter the transportation market:

They have no history of operating in that market. It's a major undertaking to compete across the globe. The other transportation companies will now be their competitor, and will refuse to buy their cars. They may not be successful because of marketing, positioning, etc.

If they refrain from that.. they can sell their cars to Uber, Lyft, et al.. which we already know the manufacturer is good at. They can sell their cars to multiple transportation companies that can offer varying levels of premium features; differentiate themselves with marketing; etc. And they can sell a large number of cars to Uber more immediately, since Uber is already in so many cities. They also won't need to deal with cab regulators in each city, etc.

Manufacturers sell their cars to dealerships who stock their cars on their lot until they sell.. this lets the manufacturer turn over inventory faster. If they built a transportation network, they would need to maintain those assets on their books.

If it were simple, I think we would see more manufacturers operating rent a car services. But we don't.

Both BMW and Mercedes run self service car rentals (ReachNow and Car2Go).

and yet those companies dont dominate the rental car market.. and plenty of other manufacturers sell cars to other rental companies.

Proves my point. Having expertise in building cars, doesn't translate over into running a transportation company. They're two separate enterprises.

Uber isn't going to go out of business just because someone else produces the cars.

"and yet those companies dont dominate the rental car market.." this is a fair point, however I feel there's more to rentals that stands in the way of that, such as real estate. There's only room for so many car rental places in a convenient location at an airport, for example.

I'm not saying setting up and running a company like Uber is an easy task, and I acknowledge that not every company vertically integrates everything they possibly could, but I don't feel like the hurdles to running a taxi app are as significant for a car company as they would be for entering other related markets.

> convenient location

Uber and Lyft don't even have taxi stands, drivers have to come from a much larger distance than even cabs, yet their usage is some multiple of taxis even with the inconvenience.

With SDC, having access to monopoly power locations will be less of an issue. And with Mercedes and BMW already sprinkled throughout an area, cars are usually close.

I think there is merit in someone having learned all of the issues with running a transportation company, but it isn't a billion dollar lesson, it is a low tens of millions of dollar lesson.

But I don't think being first has much merit, I think the margins will quickly shrink to zero within 5 years of SDCs and we will see a couple major auto manufactures go bankrupt. Ironic if the self driving car of the future is a bipedal android that makes any car a self driving car. Turning a 15k Hyundai electric into an autonomous vehicle.

And Silvercar was funded by and now acquired by Audi.

> Whoever is first to market will compete directly against Uber.

That's true, but then Uber can just run at a loss until someone else develops self-driving tech and sells it to Uber.

I'm not fully up to speed, but I thought Lyft and Waymo had something of a partnership.