Articles/megaposts by DaveT

[dha]

@TMSE re:losses

Uber is engaged in an all-out price war with Lyft right now in order to capture market share. In many markets there are major promotions and subsidies and I think Uber loses money on many rides.

For example, when Uber Pool first launched in Los Angeles, the company was offering $5 flat rides anywhere within the westside. During that period I took about a dozen Ubers between LAX airport and Century City. Not once was another passenger picked up along the way, and many of those rides were over an hour long in gridlock traffic. So I received what would normally be a $40-60 cab ride for $5. And my understanding was that Uber was guaranteeing the drivers an hourly rate at that time in exchange for participation in Pool.

Uber still guarantees gross hourly fares in major cities to this day. Anecdotally, they must be losing money on this as I'm frequently taking long, dirt-cheap Uber Pool rides all over Los Angeles often with zero other passengers picked up along the way.

 

[DaveT]

Dave,
Your argument for competitive advantages of Uber is very compelling, in fact, I would have bought it had it been public. However, over a billion dollar loss in the first quarter alone makes me scratch my head. Why on earth is that happening? All Uber owns is the technology, IP, and the man power behind it. There is hardly any capex except for datacenter infrastructure. Are they spending so much more on their R&D and SG&A that is causing such a loss? Where can I find the details?

Most of Uber's first half loss was due to their spending in China where they were in the midst of a nasty war with Didi. They ended the war to stop the bleeding, and ended up taking 17% of a $35 billion company (Didi). Even though they "lost" in China, they actually made out quite well financially. They probably invested a good $3+ billion in China over the past couple years, and ended up with $1 billion returned to them (Didi invested $1 billion in Uber in return for the deal) and a $6 billion investment in the king of ride-sharing in China.

Uber can now move on and invest heavily in some other areas, like India.

The point with Uber is though investors don't want Uber to be making a profit now. Investors want Uber to be taking their profit and more and investing them into super high growth areas, especially because the economics of Uber's business model is so good. They take 20% of the revenue of every ride. And Uber doesn't even own the cars or drivers. Uber doesn't need to pay for fuel or maintenance, or car storage, or parking.

The best way to understand Uber is to do the following:
1. Go back 4-5 years ago and read everything you can on Uber from that time period. Make sure to listen to every Travis Kalanick video interview you can find from that time period. Understand what he's trying to do, what his strategy is, etc.
2. Then, read everything you can from Uber from 2-3 years ago. Again, ignore what journalists say regarding "Uber as a money losing machine". They don't understand what they're taking about regarding investing. Super high growth companies need to be investing their money into growth. Rather focus, on whether Uber is hitting the goals they set out. Look at revenue growth. Look at their margin. Look at how they're spending their money. Look at their competitors and what they're doing.
3. Before proceeding, make sure you understand deeply why Uber won the ride-sharing wars in most of the world, over hundreds of competitors. Understand what makes Uber tick. Again, watch every Travis Kalanick video you can find from this time period.
4. Review Uber's growth the past 1-2 years. Ignore FUD from journalists. Focus on numbers. There are leaked quarterly investor calls. These have the best info, but again ignore the FUD journalists add to it. Just take the raw numbers and plug them into your investor spreadsheet. Figure out their growth rate, spending, margin, etc. See where all of this is headed.

If you do the following, I think what you'll find is one of the fastest growing companies in history with one of the most genius business models, ever.

Now, as a Tesla investor I really hope Tesla can eat Uber's lunch. But I say that after researching Uber for many months and seeing Uber for what it is. Anyone who says Tesla will "easily" beat Uber in ride-sharing... probably hasn't done their research on Uber. I think Tesla has the opportunity to beat Uber in ride-sharing, but it will be far from easy.

 

[TMSE]

Most of Uber's first half loss was due to their spending in China where they were in the midst of a nasty war with Didi. They ended the war to stop the bleeding, and ended up taking 17% of a $35 billion company (Didi). Even though they "lost" in China, they actually made out quite well financially. They probably invested a good $3+ billion in China over the past couple years, and ended up with $1 billion returned to them (Didi invested $1 billion in Uber in return for the deal) and a $6 billion investment in the king of ride-sharing in China.

Uber can now move on and invest heavily in some other areas, like India.

The point with Uber is though investors don't want Uber to be making a profit now. Investors want Uber to be taking their profit and more and investing them into super high growth areas, especially because the economics of Uber's business model is so good. They take 20% of the revenue of every ride. And Uber doesn't even own the cars or drivers. Uber doesn't need to pay for fuel or maintenance, or car storage, or parking.

The best way to understand Uber is to do the following:
1. Go back 4-5 years ago and read everything you can on Uber from that time period. Make sure to listen to every Travis Kalanick video interview you can find from that time period. Understand what he's trying to do, what his strategy is, etc.
2. Then, read everything you can from Uber from 2-3 years ago. Again, ignore what journalists say regarding "Uber as a money losing machine". They don't understand what they're taking about regarding investing. Super high growth companies need to be investing their money into growth. Rather focus, on whether Uber is hitting the goals they set out. Look at revenue growth. Look at their margin. Look at how they're spending their money. Look at their competitors and what they're doing.
3. Before proceeding, make sure you understand deeply why Uber won the ride-sharing wars in most of the world, over hundreds of competitors. Understand what makes Uber tick. Again, watch every Travis Kalanick video you can find from this time period.
4. Review Uber's growth the past 1-2 years. Ignore FUD from journalists. Focus on numbers. There are leaked quarterly investor calls. These have the best info, but again ignore the FUD journalists add to it. Just take the raw numbers and plug them into your investor spreadsheet. Figure out their growth rate, spending, margin, etc. See where all of this is headed.

If you do the following, I think what you'll find is one of the fastest growing companies in history with one of the most genius business models, ever.

Now, as a Tesla investor I really hope Tesla can eat Uber's lunch. But I say that after researching Uber for many months and seeing Uber for what it is. Anyone who says Tesla will "easily" beat Uber in ride-sharing... probably hasn't done their research on Uber. I think Tesla has the opportunity to beat Uber in ride-sharing, but it will be far from easy.

Thanks Dave. How can one invest in a pre-IPO company like Uber? Are there any targetted funds that have Uber investment?

 

[DaveT]

Thanks Dave. How can one invest in a pre-IPO company like Uber? Are there any targetted funds that have Uber investment?

Not sure about funds. But you can buy on the secondary market (ie., http://www.sharespost.com). However, it's a hassle (lots of paperwork and large minimum investment requirements).

ps., if anyone has bought shares on sharespost.com, please PM me and let me know how it went.

 

[viKtor slamet]

Already the cost of rides are going down due to Uber fitting more people into the same car via services like UberPool. Also, Google has Waze Carpool, and are charging riders a max of $0.54/mile. But I definitely agree, once we have fully self-driving cars absent of driver, then the cost of rides will go down dramatically. This is Tesla's opportunity and open door. It doesn't guarantee success for Tesla since other companies, including Uber, can gain autonomous driving tech as well. But it gives Tesla a window of opportunity to get their network up and running, and hopefully for Tesla's Network to prove superior before Uber/Google/etc starts to deploy their own autonomous vehicles.

UberPool sure cut the price by ~40% but will increase the time it took from point A to B, and still expensive. still ~$1/mile.

Waze Carpool is great pricing, about 1/4th of UberX, but not a la carte, only hopping/tagging along most common work route. At $0.50/mile this has huge potential in disrupting Uber/Lyft during work commute hours and commute route.

So the unsolved territory is still a lot. Cheap a la carte car sharing still doesn't exist, because of labor cost because of the need of human operator of the vehicle.

Tesla might not need to even sell its vehicle, and just operate the car straight out of factory and gain a lot more profit.
@ $0.50/mile x 12K mile/year (average mile) x 5 (self driving 5x more runtime mileage) = $30K/year, each car will run for 5 year = $150K rev/car
@ $0.25/mile ... = 75K/year
Assuming model 3 with full self driving trim COGS is $35K, that's a huge huge margin, higher than selling a car to a customer, plus selling a car to a customer requires to pay delivery specialist salary...

 

[pGo]

With respect to trucking business, autonomous driving can l

Not sure about funds. But you can buy on the secondary market (ie., http://www.sharespost.com). However, it's a hassle (lots of paperwork and large minimum investment requirements).

ps., if anyone has bought shares on sharespost.com, please PM me and let me know how it went.

I tried to buy FB back in the days when 25K was the min purchase and they charged 3% trading commission. I didn't go forward because of the commission. The price is more fluid if a big name company has participation where employees have no other options to sell but through sites like this.

 

[DaveT]

A few more thoughts... the pulling forward of the timeline for fully self-driving cars dramatically increases Tesla chances to successfully enter the ride-sharing (and also trucking industries). The reason being is that if the innovation (autonomous driving) is quick to deploy than it gives advantage to the innovator. Compared to if the innovation takes many years... in that case competitors have time to prepare and catch up in time.

Previously I would have given Tesla a 5-10% chance to successfully compete against Uber. Now I would give Tesla a 30-45% chance to compete successfully against Uber. Hopefully Tesla has a few more cards up their sleeves when they announce Tesla Network next year. If I hear more details and it's compelling, I'm hopeful I can raise my odds to 60-70% next year.

 

[pGo]

A bit more about Otto and Uber story in transport world.

Interstate truck drivers are supposed to follow certain guidelines on their driving schedules. More information can be found here:

https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/sites/fmcsa.dot.gov/files/docs/Drivers Guide to HOS 2015_508.pdf

For example, there is a 14 hour driving window where you have had 10 continuous hours off and you come to work at 6:00 a.m. You must not drive your truck after 8:00 p.m. that evening, which is 14 hours later. You may do other work after 8:00 p.m., but you cannot do any more driving until you have taken another 10 consecutive hours off, or the equivalent of at least 10 consecutive hours off duty.

With some of these rules in mind, autonomous trucks don't have to be functional in city driving condition as driver can manage schedule according to different driving windows and limits. A driver may sleep while the truck drives itself on highways and take over when the truck approaches city. This reduces down time, and improves efficiency when highways driving is taken care of.

Overall, bringing autonomy on highways is much easier than doing so in cities. Until a full self driving trucks become viable, solutions precisely like the Otto-Bud video talked about is going to spread faster. The return on investment seems quick even if you save 4-6 hours a day per driver while moving goods at a faster pace improving overall freight performance.

Buying Otto was clearly a genius move by Uber.

 

[Rarity]

Once they get to the destination, drivers often do the delivery. So there are many situations where drivers wouldn't be removed entirely from the equation. Because of the laws and the delivery schedule, you sometimes have two drivers in your truck playing tag team. So at a minimum, autonomous could remove one of those drivers, even if it couldn't remove both.

 

[surfside]

@DaveT, based on your research, could you comment on the single biggest challenge you see Tesla having to overcome in competing with Uber?

While I do understand the strong position Uber has established in the ride sharing market worldwide, given the relatively small number of vehicles required to dominate even a large city in the U.S. (e.g. I've seen numbers quoted in the 35-40k range as the number of Uber drivers in SF or NY; obviously all of those aren't all driving full time), I don't see what is to prevent Tesla from competing with Uber one city at a time, directing production of Tesla-owned full time "Tesla Network" autonomous vehicles to each new city until Tesla has built up enough supply to meet demands of the market. if Tesla is able to deliver an autonomous car that will meet city driving needs, I just don't see how Uber is going to be able to compete on any front: price, value (quality of car), experience, "cool factor" (getting shuttled around in an autonomous car).

Now I understand all of this is contingent on Tesla being first to market with Level 5 autonomous cars, but given the data collection that Tesla has already achieved with Hardware 1 and is about start with Hardware 2, I just don't see how anyone else is going to have a shot at beating Tesla to market. Even if Uber does develop both the hardware kit and software required for Level 5 autonomy, making that transition to driverless vehicles will represent a dramatic change in the profile of Uber's business from an asset light service provider (which an incredible business model as you have acknowledged previously and very scalable) to a capital intensive, complex business model that requires significant resources and infrastructure beyond just buying the vehicles, including figuring out fueling infrastructure (whether electric or gasoline), maintenance, car interior upkeep, etc.

In any event, it is going to be exciting to watch, no question about that! I am curious to hear your thoughts on what you view Uber's key value proposition is today. In my mind having a global presence with drivers worldwide and recognition by riders as the most prominent ride sharing company is Uber's biggest advantage; I don't see how they will be able to maintain that in the event Tesla is able to get to Level 5 autonomy first. You have mentioned before Uber building expertise in logistics (with the potential to move into shipping); I would be interested to hear more about your thoughts on that front -- do they do this with part time Uber drivers (ala Uber Eats today)? Or is this only going to happen in the event they make the transition to driverless cars?

Thanks for the good discussion and thoughtful responses as always.

surfside

 

[DaveT]

@DaveT, based on your research, could you comment on the single biggest challenge you see Tesla having to overcome in competing with Uber?

While I do understand the strong position Uber has established in the ride sharing market worldwide, given the relatively small number of vehicles required to dominate even a large city in the U.S. (e.g. I've seen numbers quoted in the 35-40k range as the number of Uber drivers in SF or NY; obviously all of those aren't all driving full time), I don't see what is to prevent Tesla from competing with Uber one city at a time, directing production of Tesla-owned full time "Tesla Network" autonomous vehicles to each new city until Tesla has built up enough supply to meet demands of the market. if Tesla is able to deliver an autonomous car that will meet city driving needs, I just don't see how Uber is going to be able to compete on any front: price, value (quality of car), experience, "cool factor" (getting shuttled around in an autonomous car).

Now I understand all of this is contingent on Tesla being first to market with Level 5 autonomous cars, but given the data collection that Tesla has already achieved with Hardware 1 and is about start with Hardware 2, I just don't see how anyone else is going to have a shot at beating Tesla to market. Even if Uber does develop both the hardware kit and software required for Level 5 autonomy, making that transition to driverless vehicles will represent a dramatic change in the profile of Uber's business from an asset light service provider (which an incredible business model as you have acknowledged previously and very scalable) to a capital intensive, complex business model that requires significant resources and infrastructure beyond just buying the vehicles, including figuring out fueling infrastructure (whether electric or gasoline), maintenance, car interior upkeep, etc.

In any event, it is going to be exciting to watch, no question about that! I am curious to hear your thoughts on what you view Uber's key value proposition is today. In my mind having a global presence with drivers worldwide and recognition by riders as the most prominent ride sharing company is Uber's biggest advantage; I don't see how they will be able to maintain that in the event Tesla is able to get to Level 5 autonomy first. You have mentioned before Uber building expertise in logistics (with the potential to move into shipping); I would be interested to hear more about your thoughts on that front -- do they do this with part time Uber drivers (ala Uber Eats today)? Or is this only going to happen in the event they make the transition to driverless cars?

Thanks for the good discussion and thoughtful responses as always.

surfside

@surfside

I see Tesla's biggest challenge in competing with Uber is that Tesla needs a window of opportunity that lasts long enough where they can establish a better service than Uber's. The challenge is Uber isn't standing still.

Right now I see Tesla having a 2 year lead regarding autonomous driving. It's not so much that they have a 2 year lead in the actual autonomous driving tech. Other tech companies are probably only 6-12 months behind in this regard. Rather, they have a 2 year lead because they're the only ones that have actually integrated Level 4/5 hardware on actually cars being sold and are rolling out the software as well.

If Tesla receives regulatory approval for Level 5 autonomous driving (driver absent cars) in 2018, and if Uber (and others) don't receive approval until 2020, then I think Tesla has a very good chance at competing and establishing a rival, if not better, network than Uber's.

The reason though I think Uber is not going to stand still is because their CEO, Travis Kalanick, is too ambitious and paranoid of competition. Also, they've got a lot of cash on hand, ie., $9 billion. And they can easily raise a lot more money than Tesla can (since Uber's valuation is around $70 billion, compared to Tesla's $30 billion). So, Uber can literally spend billions of dollars to try to catch Tesla. The question is will they spend the money? I think they will. They already started by spending $700 million on Otto, and by doing so they acquired some of the brightest minds in autonomous driving tech. Not much is off the table for Travis Kalanick, as I can see him doing some very unconventional and risky maneuvers to catch up to Tesla's lead. They can easily acquire more companies, like Comma.ai. Or they can seduce Tesla autopilot engineers via huge signing bonuses. Or they can somehow partner with an existing auto maker to expedite their own model car and self-driving hardware. If Uber can reduce Tesla's lead from 2 years to 1 year, then Tesla will have a more difficult time establishing and ramping their network. Not impossible, just more difficult. Also, Uber will likely be making a lot of money in 2019 or so, and can afford to lose billions to subsidize a huge war with Tesla. In other words, Uber can probably survive a 1 year Tesla lead and come out victorious. A 2-3 year Tesla lead might be too much though, and it could allow Tesla the foothold they need to roll out their superior network via Level 5 cars.

 

[techmaven]

Do autonomous cars essentially need to be BEVs? How do gas based autonomous vehicles refuel themselves? Could Tesla's moat be autonomy + battery + data collection advantage?

 

[DaveT]

Do autonomous cars essentially need to be BEVs? How do gas based autonomous vehicles refuel themselves? Could Tesla's moat be autonomy + battery + data collection advantage?

I'm of the inclination that autonomous vehicles don't necessarily need to be BEVs. Also for refueling, a ICE car can go to a full-service gas station (and more of these can be added, when needed). However, I do think that BEVs can achieve a much lower cost of ownership (due to lower cost of electricity vs gas) over time... as long as the cost of the vehicle isn't too high.

 

[JBRR]

@surfside

I see Tesla's biggest challenge in competing with Uber is that Tesla needs a window of opportunity that lasts long enough where they can establish a better service than Uber's. The challenge is Uber isn't standing still.

Right now I see Tesla having a 2 year lead regarding autonomous driving. It's not so much that they have a 2 year lead in the actual autonomous driving tech. Other tech companies are probably only 6-12 months behind in this regard. Rather, they have a 2 year lead because they're the only ones that have actually integrated Level 4/5 hardware on actually cars being sold and are rolling out the software as well.

If Tesla receives regulatory approval for Level 5 autonomous driving (driver absent cars) in 2018, and if Uber (and others) don't receive approval until 2020, then I think Tesla has a very good chance at competing and establishing a rival, if not better, network than Uber's.

The reason though I think Uber is not going to stand still is because their CEO, Travis Kalanick, is too ambitious and paranoid of competition. Also, they've got a lot of cash on hand, ie., $9 billion. And they can easily raise a lot more money than Tesla can (since Uber's valuation is around $70 billion, compared to Tesla's $30 billion). So, Uber can literally spend billions of dollars to try to catch Tesla. The question is will they spend the money? I think they will. They already started by spending $700 million on Otto, and by doing so they acquired some of the brightest minds in autonomous driving tech. Not much is off the table for Travis Kalanick, as I can see him doing some very unconventional and risky maneuvers to catch up to Tesla's lead. They can easily acquire more companies, like Comma.ai. Or they can seduce Tesla autopilot engineers via huge signing bonuses. Or they can somehow partner with an existing auto maker to expedite their own model car and self-driving hardware. If Uber can reduce Tesla's lead from 2 years to 1 year, then Tesla will have a more difficult time establishing and ramping their network. Not impossible, just more difficult. Also, Uber will likely be making a lot of money in 2019 or so, and can afford to lose billions to subsidize a huge war with Tesla. In other words, Uber can probably survive a 1 year Tesla lead and come out victorious. A 2-3 year Tesla lead might be too much though, and it could allow Tesla the foothold they need to roll out their superior network via Level 5 cars.

I believe Tesla has a significant advantage over Uber in attracting and retaining talent.

The most talented people in each industry are likely to be motivated by more than $. And Tesla has a more compelling mission that is bound to do more good for more people.

Uber:
"Transportation as reliable as running water, everywhere for everyone"

Tesla:
"Tesla's mission is to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy"

 

[WarpedOne]

The challenge is Uber isn't standing still.

I'm still waiting for explanation from where will uber get the autonomous cars. Who will produce them for Uber in meaningful numbers?

 

[Matias]

Alright, here's a few more thoughts:

1. Stop giving NVIDIA credit.
The entire software package is created by Tesla (according to Elon). The neural net is created by Tesla, and this includes all the object processing/recognition, radar and mapping analysis, decision making by car, etc. NVIDIA is only providing the computer and GPU (and maybe some minor software tools to interface w/GPU). Give credit where credit is due. This system is all Tesla. Sure it uses cameras made by "X company", radar by Bosch, computer/GPU by NVIDIA, etc. But that's not where the difficulty lies. The difficulty lies in the software... made by Tesla.

I would not go so far as saying that building neural net tuned computer for cars and specially neural net supercomputer (DGX-1) is not difficult...

Without fast hardware for training, it would take ages to train the net.

To my understanding DGX-1 is state of the art machine.

 

[SBenson]

I'm of the inclination that autonomous vehicles don't necessarily need to be BEVs. Also for refueling, a ICE car can go to a full-service gas station (and more of these can be added, when needed). However, I do think that BEVs can achieve a much lower cost of ownership (due to lower cost of electricity vs gas) over time... as long as the cost of the vehicle isn't too high.

We also know that Tesla has been working on million mile drivetrains. For a few years now actually. If Tesla succeeds at that, which is a high probability, the cost differential to ICE will be 5x to 10x right there.

 

[TNEVol]

I seem to recall that Julian did some numbers on BEV vs ICE several months ago. Obviously very optimistic. Techmaven, you may want to look back at those and adjust to the current thinking.

 

[surfside]

@surfside

I see Tesla's biggest challenge in competing with Uber is that Tesla needs a window of opportunity that lasts long enough where they can establish a better service than Uber's. The challenge is Uber isn't standing still.

Right now I see Tesla having a 2 year lead regarding autonomous driving. It's not so much that they have a 2 year lead in the actual autonomous driving tech. Other tech companies are probably only 6-12 months behind in this regard. Rather, they have a 2 year lead because they're the only ones that have actually integrated Level 4/5 hardware on actually cars being sold and are rolling out the software as well.

If Tesla receives regulatory approval for Level 5 autonomous driving (driver absent cars) in 2018, and if Uber (and others) don't receive approval until 2020, then I think Tesla has a very good chance at competing and establishing a rival, if not better, network than Uber's.

The reason though I think Uber is not going to stand still is because their CEO, Travis Kalanick, is too ambitious and paranoid of competition. Also, they've got a lot of cash on hand, ie., $9 billion. And they can easily raise a lot more money than Tesla can (since Uber's valuation is around $70 billion, compared to Tesla's $30 billion). So, Uber can literally spend billions of dollars to try to catch Tesla. The question is will they spend the money? I think they will. They already started by spending $700 million on Otto, and by doing so they acquired some of the brightest minds in autonomous driving tech. Not much is off the table for Travis Kalanick, as I can see him doing some very unconventional and risky maneuvers to catch up to Tesla's lead. They can easily acquire more companies, like Comma.ai. Or they can seduce Tesla autopilot engineers via huge signing bonuses. Or they can somehow partner with an existing auto maker to expedite their own model car and self-driving hardware. If Uber can reduce Tesla's lead from 2 years to 1 year, then Tesla will have a more difficult time establishing and ramping their network. Not impossible, just more difficult. Also, Uber will likely be making a lot of money in 2019 or so, and can afford to lose billions to subsidize a huge war with Tesla. In other words, Uber can probably survive a 1 year Tesla lead and come out victorious. A 2-3 year Tesla lead might be too much though, and it could allow Tesla the foothold they need to roll out their superior network via Level 5 cars.

Thanks for the response. Some follow up questions:

-How is Uber (or anyone else for that matter) going to gather the enormous amount data required to create Level 5 capable autonomous software?
-Has Uber disclosed / signaled how they would intend to roll out autonomous technology once they have it (e.g. Will they sell hardware kits and software to car owners for them to install and allow their car to become an autonomous car? Or will they sell/license their technology to a particular automaker that can then incorporate their hardware into their cars, with the agreement that they will be only utilized on the Uber network?)
-Is your assumption about having a one year lead as being not enough to definitively beat Uber because you think it will take one year for Tesla to build out its Tesla Network fleet presence worldwide to match Uber's worldwide presence?

Curious for everyone's thoughts on these questions, although @DaveT obviously interested in yours as well given you have spent so much time researching Uber.

surfside

 

[ggies07]

Thanks for the response. Some follow up questions:

-How is Uber (or anyone else for that matter) going to gather the enormous amount data required to create Level 5 capable autonomous software?
-Has Uber disclosed / signaled how they would intend to roll out autonomous technology once they have it (e.g. Will they sell hardware kits and software to car owners for them to install and allow their car to become an autonomous car? Or will they sell/license their technology to a particular automaker that can then incorporate their hardware into their cars, with the agreement that they will be only utilized on the Uber network?)
-Is your assumption about having a one year lead as being not enough to definitively beat Uber because you think it will take one year for Tesla to build out its Tesla Network fleet presence worldwide to match Uber's worldwide presence?

Curious for everyone's thoughts on these questions, although @DaveT obviously interested in yours as well given you have spent so much time researching Uber.

surfside

IMO these are the reasons why Tesla will dominate in the public eye. Tesla has in place right now responsible/safe ways to collect the data. I would not want to get into an Uber car that had some 'kit' installed on a random normal car and in which I do not know how well their data network is in play.