Uber orders 100,000 autonomous Mercedes cars

[jkliu47]

After considering Tesla, Uber reportedly placed an order with Mercedes for 100,000 self-driving cars

 

[LargeHamCollider]

S-Class? not going to be cost competitive with autonomous M3, this sounds highly speculative.

 

[ecarfan]

After considering Tesla, Uber reportedly placed an order with Mercedes for 100,000 self-driving cars

Please identify your source for that information. "Reportedly" doesn't mean anything.

 

[kort677]

interesting, I didn't know that any manufacturer has brought an autonomous car to market

 

[Todd Burch]

If you read the article, the order is "expected to be fulfilled" around 2020, and "it will be contingent on diverse conditions, not the least of which actually building the technology for autonomous driving".

Haha. So they placed an order for 100,000 cars, 4 years before they expect it to be fulfilled, and before the product they're ordering even exists?

Strange. They might be upset if Tesla has their autonomous car to market first.

(Not sure who will be first though. Mercedes is no slouch in that arena).

 

[larmor]

I'm sorry but I think that this news does not reportedly pass the smell test. In my cynical view this is just someone's way of trying to get someone to show their hand. Public companies are real institutions with real investors and rumors have no place when it comes to real products and services.

 

[ecarfan]

Please identify your source for that information. "Reportedly" doesn't mean anything.

Okay, now I see that the OP included a link in his post. I am partially color blind and can't see the link color. Didn't realize it was a link until I moused over it using my notebook computer (originally read the post on my iPad).

So the source was a German magazine article at Daimler: Uber offenbar an autonom fahrenden S-Klassen interessiert - manager magazin

The story seems dubious. Why would Uber "place an order" for billions of dollars for years in the future for a product that they haven't seen because it doesn't exist? The Uber CEO knows that Tesla and many major car companies are working on autonomous driving.

I suspect the "order" was just a casual conversation.

 

[CHG-ON]

I don't believe it.

 

[SFOTurtle]

I don't believe it either. What exactly did uber order?? And for what geographies?

 

[AUSinator]

If the CEO of uber thinks he can run 100000 empty cars on our already super congested roads and at the same time make 100000 people unemployed. He is massively mistaken!!!

 

[artsci]

Regrettably, this is exactly the kind of BS that's rampant in the interconnected world we have today. It's increasingly difficult but ever more important to distinguish truth from lies and this, most likely, is a lie.

 

[tomas]

It is true. And the MB autonomous car they ordered is called the "gullible-wing".

 

[1208]

To the non-believers

 

[Ulmo]

S-Class? not going to be cost competitive with autonomous M3, this sounds highly speculative.

Both companies could build passenger-specific models that accentuate passenger comfort and safety, as opposed to the current lineup that pay a lot of attention to the drivers (especially on the Tesla side). This could be better value for that marketplace.

 

[Brick_top]

didn't the uber ceo said in the late show that he wants 200.000 tesla cars?