On Mon, 26 Sep 2016 12:09:23 +0100, David Cantrell
wrote:

On Fri, Sep 23, 2016 at 11:01:31AM +0100, tim... wrote:

but they can afford one city as a trial on the basis of their current
funding

but scaling it up to 10,000 cities just isn't going to be cheap, and I defy
them to find the funding for such.

If they can show that it works in one place, and makes money, then I'm
sure that the funding will be available. Not enough to go straight to
10,000 cities, but to roll it out to another 10 and do a larger trial.
And then to expand that, and to expand that, and so on, until all 10,000
are covered.

You could have levelled the same criticism against bold plans 130 years
ago to do ridiculous things like connect every single house in the
country to the electricity supply.

And I don't know where Tim got the idea that Uber is aiming to
instantly roll out self-driving cars in 10,000 cities. It's currently
only active in about 500, and I suspect it only plans to generate
detailed maps of a small subset of these.

Perhaps it will one day find 10,000 cities to dominate, but that must
be many decades away, if ever, particularly now it's pulled out of
China.

On Mon, 26 Sep 2016 12:29:25 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 09:08:36 on Mon, 26 Sep
2016, tim... remarked:

If you're prepared to pay 50 grand for a new car, perhaps

I was astonished to see *second hand* Land Rover Discos for sale on a
forecourt for more than 50k. Some people have money to burn.

Yes, that is a lot. It must have been loaded with extras.

The new, more upmarket Disco 5 is expected to have an entry price of
~£45k for the 2 litre diesel version when it ships next year. The
top-end Disco price is likely to be around £60k or more, before
options.

In message , at 12:25:15
on Mon, 26 Sep 2016, David Cantrell remarked:

I used Uber on Saturday. I've noticed that in the last few months I've
not had a single Prius from Uber, but that previously it was almost all
Priuses.

Prii, shirley?

https://www.engadget.com/2011/02/21/...ural-of-prius-
is-prii-your-latin-teach/
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 12:54:47 on
Mon, 26 Sep 2016, Recliner remarked:
On Mon, 26 Sep 2016 12:06:13 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 09:08:36 on Mon, 26 Sep
2016, tim... remarked:
I have already explained, this is risk capital with the backers
expecting a return on only 1 in 3 of their investments. Uber has been
measured against that criteria. You really can't use the measure that
VCs are investing as proof that a venture is guaranteed to be
successful. The world is littered with VC failures, including some
that required investments in the Billions. How much did Microsoft lose
buying Skyp?

Twitter is looking for White Knight at the moment, having consistently
lost money with no turn-around on the horizon.

Of course, Twitter had a successful IPO, so the VCs have already got
their return. It's the later TWTR investors who are hoping for a
generous buyout. But the company is making money, albeit much less
than hoped-for:

"The company posted second-quarter adjusted earnings of 13 cents a
share on revenue of $602 million. Wall Street expected it to post
earnings of 10 cents a share on revenue of $607 million, according to
a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate. Profit per share was up from 7
cents a year earlier, and revenue rose 20 percent."

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/26/twitt...econd-quarter-
2016-earnings.html

Alternatively:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...r-shares-dive-
as-it-reports-heavy-loss/
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 13:05:54 on
Mon, 26 Sep 2016, Recliner remarked:

In message , at 09:08:36 on Mon, 26 Sep
2016, tim... remarked:

If you're prepared to pay 50 grand for a new car, perhaps

I was astonished to see *second hand* Land Rover Discos for sale on a
forecourt for more than 50k. Some people have money to burn.

Yes, that is a lot. It must have been loaded with extras.

"It" - there were loads[1], perhaps not very old, but there have always
been a lot of very low mileage Discos for sale. People buying them
expecting a cheap Range Rover not an expensive Defender, perhaps?

The new, more upmarket Disco 5 is expected to have an entry price of
~£45k for the 2 litre diesel version when it ships next year. The
top-end Disco price is likely to be around £60k or more, before
options.

[1] https://goo.gl/maps/zNthwYkdsQ42
https://www.hunterslandrover.co.uk/c...ock/?ranges=Di
scovery&price=1000-110000&age=5&co2emissions=1-400&sortType=combinedmpg&
sortOrder=desc&view=list-view%20vtype-car&p=1
Says they have fifteen for sale In Guildford. Most expensive this
week £43,499; others in the chain have them up to £51,500.
https://www.hunterslandrover.co.uk/v...ery/discovery-
30-sdv6-landmark/discovery-30-sdv6-landmark-pk16mbf-2793321/
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 12:46:36 on
Mon, 26 Sep 2016, Recliner remarked:

But these improvements will feed back into the
eventual commercial release, which is probably several years away.

Like fusion power, you mean?

No, exactly the opposite. This stuff works,

Only with human drivers available to take over.

and just needs fine-tuning.

There's general agreement in the industry that they "just don't work" in
snow. That's not "only-just don't work", flat "don't work".
--
Roland Perry

On Mon, 26 Sep 2016 13:11:50 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 12:54:47 on
Mon, 26 Sep 2016, Recliner remarked:
On Mon, 26 Sep 2016 12:06:13 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 09:08:36 on Mon, 26 Sep
2016, tim... remarked:
I have already explained, this is risk capital with the backers
expecting a return on only 1 in 3 of their investments. Uber has been
measured against that criteria. You really can't use the measure that
VCs are investing as proof that a venture is guaranteed to be
successful. The world is littered with VC failures, including some
that required investments in the Billions. How much did Microsoft lose
buying Skyp?

Twitter is looking for White Knight at the moment, having consistently
lost money with no turn-around on the horizon.

Of course, Twitter had a successful IPO, so the VCs have already got
their return. It's the later TWTR investors who are hoping for a
generous buyout. But the company is making money, albeit much less
than hoped-for:

"The company posted second-quarter adjusted earnings of 13 cents a
share on revenue of $602 million. Wall Street expected it to post
earnings of 10 cents a share on revenue of $607 million, according to
a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate. Profit per share was up from 7
cents a year earlier, and revenue rose 20 percent."

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/26/twitt...econd-quarter-
2016-earnings.html

Alternatively:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...r-shares-dive-
as-it-reports-heavy-loss/

Both are probably correct. It depends on what adjustments are
included:

- Q2 GAAP net loss of $107 million and non-GAAP net income of $93
million.

- Q2 GAAP diluted EPS of ($0.15) and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.13.

- Q2 adjusted EBITDA of $175 million, up 45% year-over-year,
representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 29%.

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA-2F526X/2906934520x0x901385/664658CA-D1D8-4635-83F4-8C9D5A9A1F52/ShareholderLetter_Q2_16.pdf

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message
-sept
ember.org, at 08:45:29 on Mon, 26 Sep 2016, Recliner
remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message
-sept
ember.org, at 21:30:40 on Sat, 24 Sep 2016, Recliner
remarked:

Anyway, here's a recent report of Uber's self-driving tests in
Pittsburgh:
http://www.economist.com/news/busine...nches-its-firs
t-self-driving-cars-pitt-stop

I think you'll find that's the University's testing, and because Uber
funds that programme they get to go "along for the ride" so to speak.

It's also an early testing phase, which the cars won't necessarily pass.

It's not really a pass or fail issue. It's an alpha test. I assume the
software, algorithms and mapping database will be continually adjusted
during this testing phase, but no-one is planning to roll out this version
as a commercial release. But these improvements will feed back into the
eventual commercial release, which is probably several years away.

Like fusion power, you mean?

The big step in this phase is that it's not just the private test running
that Google has been doing for years, but a public test, with random
members of the public actually using the cars as a taxi service.

I've always assumed the Google test was at the very least assisting their
employees to commute to work. Or is it only people driving around at
random during their work day with the firm?


The German company that I recently worked for ran their trial autonomous car
solely around the factor site (it was a big factory site)

It only just avoided knocking down its garage as they put it to bed one day
:-)

tim

On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 12:31:48PM +0100, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 12:01:29
on Mon, 26 Sep 2016, David Cantrell remarked:
What's different about them that makes it possible for someone to pop up
and start competing with Uber, but impossible for someone to pop up and
start competing with Amazon?
Mainly that Uber's buyers are only dealing with one commodity - drivers,
and their product is self-delivering. Amazon has tens of thousands of
product suppliers

So do Tesco.

and tens of thousands of people required for
picking/packing and delivering them.

So they're a bit bigger than any of the supermarket home delivery
things or something like Sports Direct, but that's not an insurmountable
problem.

In any case, to compete with a business you don't have to do everything
that that business does or do it in the same way. The few remaining
bookshops, for example, are in competition with Amazon, despite not
also selling beer and sex toys, despite not stocking many books, and
despite not delivering them to your door for free.

--
David Cantrell | top google result for "topless karaoke murders"

Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt

In message , at 13:51:15
on Tue, 27 Sep 2016, David Cantrell remarked:

What's different about them that makes it possible for someone to pop up
and start competing with Uber, but impossible for someone to pop up and
start competing with Amazon?
Mainly that Uber's buyers are only dealing with one commodity - drivers,
and their product is self-delivering. Amazon has tens of thousands of
product suppliers

So do Tesco.

Hence you couldn't set up in competition to tesco as easily (as you can
with Uber) either. What's your point?

and tens of thousands of people required for
picking/packing and delivering them.

So they're a bit bigger than any of the supermarket home delivery
things or something like Sports Direct, but that's not an insurmountable
problem.

I only takes abut ten years to grow a company of the size you are taking
about.

In any case, to compete with a business you don't have to do everything
that that business does or do it in the same way. The few remaining
bookshops, for example, are in competition with Amazon, despite not
also selling beer and sex toys, despite not stocking many books, and
despite not delivering them to your door for free.

Which is why people can easily set up competitors for Uber by
cherry-picking a bit of its market (just one of the types of service,
one city, etc).
--
Roland Perry