Self-Driving Uber - The world’s first Self-Driving Ubers

@rrhoover It was always obvious that most of Uber's cost comes from paying their drivers. With technology, they are trying to lower that but now my question is, how are they gonna provide customer service. I know in the beginning they would have a driver and engineer in the car but eventually I am sure they would want to eliminate/lower those costs as well. So how are they going to manage lets say drunk people getting picked up at 2am and throwing up in the car?? haha. It seems to me that a driver or uber employee will always need to be present in it. I personally don't feel like sitting in a car all day and not doing anything while people get in and out and the car drives itself. haha

@cemedericarak @rrhoover Maybe they just add a camera in the interior. One person can easily keep tabs on a dozen cars. My guess at least

@cemedericarak @rrhoover My guess is heavy insurance (surely insurance firms are preparing themselves for this wave) + nightly vehicle maintenance (similar to how rental car companies currently operate). ^ per the tossing use case, maybe a camera in car with outsourced mechanical-turk type operation. They don't have to have no cost, just lower than hourly drivers.

@rrhoover As @jakewesorick says I find this on par with Google's controlled tests and not really "in-market" if there is a 'safety driver'. But it is still really cool! Overall, I'm more impressed with Tesla's ability to upgrade autopilot OTA on 100k+ cars being driven by real users across multiple scenarios. This creates an iterative, real-world testing platform that likely means they will have the best software, the fastest. (i'm assuming they can silently run data-collection experiments whether or not autopilot is 'on'). Eventually, it may not matter who is 'first' if the tech becomes a commodity. Will Uber be able to leverage their expertise in matching rider demand to offer the best service/prices? Or, will another player disrupt them by offering value added services or ad-supported 'free' rides? Exciting times...

@cemedericarak @rrhoover Could ve very simple. If the car gets puked an office employee who keeps tabs on multiple cars via remote video flags it in the software and it returns to the Uber depot for cleanup before being sent back out again.

@alexisohanian @raffi @jason 👍🏾

@juanbuis $$$$

@juanbuis it's just business. tesla doesn't need uber, but volvo does

@juanbuis Because Tesla is (or will be) a ride-hailing competitor to Uber with its own self-driving fleet. What's more surprising is, why aren't these Volvos? That's the auto maker partnership that Uber has promoted.

@davidryalpug I'd think it's vice versa

@grammakov redo: volvo needs uber, uber just needs a car company. tesla can build its own ridesharing network

@xnet Was wondering if anyone else noticed this. Yeah, that would /technically/ be a violation in CA. Not sure about Pennsylvania's driving laws.

@peterkimfrank @xnet California driving laws are retarded.

@csfalcao - Apple will not back off because someone has a great product in first. The more the merrier I think - they will all be better if there is competition.

@csfalcao Apple was too busy disrupting the headphone jack :) But seriously, would love to see their version. Hope it has more than 1 button

@tariktech Maybe I'm wrong, but if Tesla brings nice EV to masses, and Uber self-driving car systems, what is left for car innovation from Apple? The iPhone wasn't the first cell phone, but it had a lot of first one's features on a cell phone.

@evankimbrell I'm really surprised how fast Uber got into this level.

@csfalcao - I'm not saying you're wrong - I am just saying that Apple consistently finds ways to innovate on what appears to be in a good place and they have never shied away from entering a market due to someone else's dominance. It could be related to the way you interact with the car, or it could just be privacy focused like the way they do machine learning on the device, but I am confident they will find a way to compete that is compelling for consumers.

@travisweathers Short term capital investment for long term returns, though.

@travisweathers They can dip into some of the $500M a year they make in SF alone