Your point 1 is "Maybe Uber is going to get a huge kick in the teeth right now, so then the later kick in the teeth will... pale in comparison?" But actually they aren't terribly related. You get why startups exist in the computer sector and not in the traditional manufacturing sector? It's because growth is so much easier in the computer sector. The marginal cost to add a customer in software is tiny. The marginal cost to add a customer in a business with physical inventory is much higher. Going from software to physical business is not to be desired.
Your point 2 is yet more awful for Uber: Great, they get to compete on cleanest car? So now in addition to having to buy these very expensive depreciating assets, they also have to add local employees everywhere to actually clean them? Wasn't the advantage here going to be that they took the cost of "paying people" out of the equation? Uber's growth is going to be based on their ability to build out a really competitive cleaning service? Does that sound like a business you want to invest in?
Point 3 is interesting:
So, look, people who were already of the opinion that there's too much car ownership have gotten excited about the potential of driverless cars to increase car utilization. But "increasing car utilization" isn't a goal of normal people. "Saving money and/or receiving more value" is the goal.
A heavily utilized Uber car is cheaper on some margins than a lightly utilized personal car (that is, it's cheaper based on time-based depreciation and on parking fees). It's more expensive on other margins (it drives more miles per passenger served than the personal car, so its fuel costs, maintenance costs, insurance costs, and milage-based depreciation are higher). And of course Uber has to make a profit, so that's an additional cost as well.
How does that all play out? You can add up the hypothetical costs fifteen different ways based on different assumptions, and come up with whatever numbers suit you. The truth is that nobody knows how the cost of ownership of driverless cars is going to break down yet.
But I will tell you one thing: No car, Uber or otherwise, is going to be 95% utilized.
Your point 1 is "Maybe Uber is going to get a huge kick in the teeth right now, so then the later kick in the teeth will... pale in comparison?" But actually they aren't terribly related. You get why startups exist in the computer sector and not in the traditional manufacturing sector? It's because growth is so much easier in the computer sector. The marginal cost to add a customer in software is tiny. The marginal cost to add a customer in a business with physical inventory is much higher. Going from software to physical business is not to be desired.
Your point 2 is yet more awful for Uber: Great, they get to compete on cleanest car? So now in addition to having to buy these very expensive depreciating assets, they also have to add local employees everywhere to actually clean them? Wasn't the advantage here going to be that they took the cost of "paying people" out of the equation? Uber's growth is going to be based on their ability to build out a really competitive cleaning service? Does that sound like a business you want to invest in?
Point 3 is interesting:
So, look, people who were already of the opinion that there's too much car ownership have gotten excited about the potential of driverless cars to increase car utilization. But "increasing car utilization" isn't a goal of normal people. "Saving money and/or receiving more value" is the goal.
A heavily utilized Uber car is cheaper on some margins than a lightly utilized personal car (that is, it's cheaper based on time-based depreciation and on parking fees). It's more expensive on other margins (it drives more miles per passenger served than the personal car, so its fuel costs, maintenance costs, insurance costs, and milage-based depreciation are higher). And of course Uber has to make a profit, so that's an additional cost as well.
How does that all play out? You can add up the hypothetical costs fifteen different ways based on different assumptions, and come up with whatever numbers suit you. The truth is that nobody knows how the cost of ownership of driverless cars is going to break down yet.
But I will tell you one thing: No car, Uber or otherwise, is going to be 95% utilized.