Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I think Uber is a lost cause, sorry to say but the food delivery business cannot be profitable for a majority of customers to where they will still pay for takeout. Their ATS service(self driving cars etc) was using stolen technology from waymo, now they are forced to using their own technologies they are way behind waymo, aurora, nuro, etc. Even ride hailing which is supposed to be their bread and butter is losing money, trying to up the ride costs and expect a huge drop in riders. Lastly Covid-19 joined the party, nobody wants to ride in a strangers car who could be infected (or visa-versa). This mindset of fear of the virus could take a year or so to subside, by then how much money will they have burnt?


Ride hailing wasn’t losing money.


Not only was it not losing money. It was actually quite profitable pre-covid.


The worst part is consumers have also lost because of uber. The promise of convenient, affordable transportation will not be delivered. Uber/Lyft rides will be more expensive than cab rides were because users have to support Uber's overhead.


self driving cars are the answer, which are impervious to pandemics like coronavirus as an added bonus and will reduce the human death toll inflicted from motor-vehicle casualties at the hands of human drivers.


I'm not convinced that self driving cars are pandemic proof, on the contrary. Who's gonna desinfect the car seates and handles of an autonomous self driving car during a deadly pandemic? It's a lot safer to use your own car than a virus and bacteria ridden shared car used by God knows how many infected people. The customer isn't gonna clean it. So you need workers to clean and desinfect the car after every single ride. Even if you use robots, the cars must drive to the cleaning facility first, dramatically reducing their availability on the streets and profitability.


Yes, I can't wait to buy a self driving car :)




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: