Uber and Lift leaving California, potential opening for a RoboTaxi fleet?

[APotatoGod]

It's been big news today, a new California law is requiring ride-sharing companies to treat their drivers as employees, not contractors, and apparently Uber and Lyft have both decided to stop service in California instead of complying with the law.

It's a little early, but if Tesla can start it's robotaxi fleet in the next few years as they hope, perhaps there will still be a bit of an extra opening in the California market for them. Of course some other company will have likely reclaimed most of Uber and Lyft's Californian market share by then, but I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla still benefits from this if they can roll out the robotaxi fleet in time.

 

[diplomat33]

It's been big news today, a new California law is requiring ride-sharing companies to treat their drivers as employees, not contractors, and apparently Uber and Lyft have both decided to stop service in California instead of complying with the law.

It's a little early, but if Tesla can start it's robotaxi fleet in the next few years as they hope, perhaps there will still be a bit of an extra opening in the California market for them. Of course some other company will have likely reclaimed most of Uber and Lyft's Californian market share by then, but I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla still benefits from this if they can roll out the robotaxi fleet in time.

It's definitely good news for ride-hailing robotaxi fleets since they can operate without drivers and get around this law. So this is great news for Cruise and Waymo.

Tesla is still far from being able to remove the driver from the car, and if Tesla still needs a driver, then they would face the same law that hit Lyft and Uber. I doubt that Tesla would want to have to treat Tesla owners as employees either. So I don't think it helps Tesla that much.

 

[heysteveh]

I wouldn’t be surprised if California figured out a way to apply this law to Tesla’s planned Robotaxi fleet: either they would have to treat me (and other Tesla owners) as employees , or they would have to treat the cars themselves as employees (after all, Tesla cars are special, most of them have names given by their owners who treat them as part of their family).

 

[DanCar]

Uber and Lyft actually aren't halting operations in California, after court ruling

Lyft and Uber will not suspend their ride-hailing services in California on Thursday at midnight, after a state appeals court ruled in their favor regarding an injunction against the companies.

 

[jboy210]

Love that they are claiming they cannot respond in the judge's 10 days timeframe. This bill passed in September and spent a year before that winding through the legislature. Hard to believe these companies did not have contingency plans ready to go months ago. Or maybe they did and the plan was to threaten to leave.

 

[jboy210]

I wouldn’t be surprised if California figured out a way to apply this law to Tesla’s planned Robotaxi fleet: either they would have to treat me (and other Tesla owners) as employees , or they would have to treat the cars themselves as employees (after all, Tesla cars are special, most of them have names given by their owners who treat them as part of their family).

My X and 3 have the same name, the default "Enter name here".