Legal Troubles, Market Realities Threaten Uber's Global Push

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Why is everyone just now realizing this?

Just last week, the company faced a police raid on its European headquarters in the Netherlands, a criminal trial of two top executives in France, a ban on its services in Rio de Janeiro and proposed new regulations in London and Toronto that could cripple its services in those cities. The Uber Pop service, known as Uber X in the U.S., which enables people to offer rides in private cars, is now banned outright in most of Western Europe. In Australia, Uber is popular but mostly illegal, with several big court challenges looming.
 
They basically flouted every law they could; sure, you can get away with that for a little while perhaps, governments and law enforcement have limited resources as well.

But it isn't a long-term strategy.
 
I'm waiting to see what happens when self-driving cars are common. That will be the real battle between cities, cabbies, fees, convenience, etc. I always saw Uber as just a stop-gap between now and whenever you can just have a self-driving car just come get you. Imagine going out to a club and just letting your car drive you home if you've had too many.
 
By the time self driving cars are common they'll be sued out of existence. They won't last the 10yr+ its going to take for that to happen. They probably won't last past 2020 at the current rate things are going.
 
"Hey guys, I have great business model. Let's run a livery service without any of the of the licensing or paying any of the fees. What could go wrong?"

Anyone who invested or didn't see this coming is a moron.
 
Old_Way said:
I'm waiting to see what happens when self-driving cars are common. That will be the real battle between cities, cabbies, fees, convenience, etc. I always saw Uber as just a stop-gap between now and whenever you can just have a self-driving car just come get you. Imagine going out to a club and just letting your car drive you home if you've had too many.
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I would like to see that the idea of needing to own a car become just a "luxury/utility." Meaning, that needing to own one is because of the lifestyle you have or whatnot. Farmers are going to need trucks. However, public transportion and others means of travel need to get a boost. I see Uber and the like as the emerging innovated necessity to making that happen. Couple that with a hyperloop, and we can reduce domestic flights by a huge margin. Not too mention reduce the needs for Highways. We would put our resources towards cleaner and more efficient forms of domestic travel.
 
Old_Way said:
I'm waiting to see what happens when self-driving cars are common. That will be the real battle between cities, cabbies, fees, convenience, etc. I always saw Uber as just a stop-gap between now and whenever you can just have a self-driving car just come get you. Imagine going out to a club and just letting your car drive you home if you've had too many.
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I think there's a few cities in the UK that has self-driving cars deployed for trials (smart roads). So we could always look to those for a quick answer.
 
twonunpackmule said:
I would like to see that the idea of needing to own a car become just a "luxury/utility." Meaning, that needing to own one is because of the lifestyle you have or whatnot. Farmers are going to need trucks. However, public transportion and others means of travel need to get a boost. I see Uber and the like as the emerging innovated necessity to making that happen. Couple that with a hyperloop, and we can reduce domestic flights by a huge margin. Not too mention reduce the needs for Highways. We would put our resources towards cleaner and more efficient forms of domestic travel.
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Kinda hard to fit my quad on a train or go play in the snow in a cab
 
Well if they stayed as a legit ride-sharing/carpool service, they may have been okay. But the moment they started hiring drivers, they jumped right into taxi/insurance/regulation territory. Serves them right IMO.
 
How is Lyft doing? I always hear that Uber is being delt blows left and right because they think they are above the law but does Lyft operate this way as well?
 
Dirty Butler said:
Kinda hard to fit my quad on a train or go play in the snow in a cab
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These people pushing mass transit just don't understand, just like the people who think everyone should be driving an electric car.

I don't want to sit next to some smelly drunk/homeless guy, or sit in a seat that someone has sweated all over.

When I'm coming home from work, about half the time I stop somewhere to go shopping, or drop something off. If I took a self driving cab, I'd have to unload everything and take it into the office instead of just letting it sit in my trunk till my drive home. Going to the store would also be a hassle, as I'd have to take my briefcase/other work stuff into the store instead of just leaving it in the trunk.

No, I'll stick to my own car.
 
TwistedAegis said:
They basically flouted every law they could; sure, you can get away with that for a little while perhaps, governments and law enforcement have limited resources as well.

But it isn't a long-term strategy.
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I agree Uber was too blatant in their disregard for the law. I think they might've been able to establish themselves a bit more firmly (with the ultimate goal being to survive until they could go autonomous) if they'd featured the SHARING aspect more prominently.

Instead of directly charging credit cards for rides, they could have done something like let users earn ride credits by giving rides, and purchase ride credits, without making each ride an separate monetary transaction. Of course most of Uber's current employees (yeah, I went there) would not be interested in destroying their personal cars for ride credits, and once you start letting them pull ride credits out as cash, you're back at square one. But partnering with gas stations, retail stores, and auto service chains where you could spend ride credits could have allowed them to maintain the illusion of being a 'sharing' facilitator while providing sufficient incentives to attract some drivers (and avoided the employee quagmire too).
 
Old_Way said:
Imagine going out to a club and just letting your car drive you home if you've had too many.
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That works for some, but doesn't work for those who don't have a way to own a car or don't want to own a car. There's also ppl in large cities, where they predominantly use public transportation and only use a taxi every so often. It isn't financially responsible to own your own vehicle for those "every so often" moments.
 
Uber is this generations 100 mile per gallon carburetor. It simply won't be allowed to happen.

The government doesn't like it because it loses too much control over earned income.

The competition doesn't like it because, well, union and protectionism.

It was doomed from the start.
 
Uber is this generations 100 mile per gallon carburetor. It simply won't be allowed to happen.

The government doesn't like it because it loses too much control over earned income.

The competition doesn't like it because, well, union and protectionism.

It was doomed from the start.
 
TechLarry said:
Uber is this generations 100 mile per gallon carburetor. It simply won't be allowed to happen.
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Um, that was like an urban myth thing-y. My grandfather was one of those people who was totally into that one until we looked it up online for him and he was super grumpy about finding out it was just a made up legend like the whole random ship and lighthouse story.
 
krotch said:
That works for some, but doesn't work for those who don't have a way to own a car or don't want to own a car. There's also ppl in large cities, where they predominantly use public transportation and only use a taxi every so often. It isn't financially responsible to own your own vehicle for those "every so often" moments.
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Cities like New York are the exception in this country. Rather than thinking in terms of 'can't afford a car / don't want to own a car', we should be thinking of all those 2 car suburban families that could now get by with only owning 1 car. Imagine having your car drop you off at work or at a bus/train stop that goes to your work, then sending it home for your spouse to use during the day. At a pre-arranged time your car could pick you up again in the evening.

I doubt we'll ever do away with the need for personal transportation entirely except maybe in very large cities. But there's certainly ways to make better use of our time, money, resources, etc. if we can manage to cut down on how much personal transportation is needed.
 
Steve said:
I'm pretty sure he knows that ;)
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I dunno, it seems weird to compare something that does exist like Uber to something that was only ever an urban legend unless you didn't know the urban legend was an urban legend to make a point about governments acting out against something. Its kinda like comparing Tinkerbell to J.K. Rowling and saying that the publishing companies are upset about the books both of them wrote and are acting similar in both cases to blacklist them to prevent publication.
 
Old_Way said:
Cities like New York are the exception in this country. Rather than thinking in terms of 'can't afford a car / don't want to own a car', we should be thinking of all those 2 car suburban families that could now get by with only owning 1 car. Imagine having your car drop you off at work or at a bus/train stop that goes to your work, then sending it home for your spouse to use during the day. At a pre-arranged time your car could pick you up again in the evening.

I doubt we'll ever do away with the need for personal transportation entirely except maybe in very large cities. But there's certainly ways to make better use of our time, money, resources, etc. if we can manage to cut down on how much personal transportation is needed.
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Imagine a 2 car suburban family, where the two adults both work in different locations and both need a car to go to work and there is no public transport, so they'll need their car for things throughout the day like...getting food.

You can't lump everyone together, cause everyone can have very different needs. You provide options, but you don't take away options.

Do I think driverless cars are a good idea? Yes, but I don't expect to see them completely replace normal cars, not until you change everyone's mindset, which I don't see happening anytime in my lifetime. Definitely not changing mine. I own 4 cars and I'm single.
 
krotch said:
Imagine a 2 car suburban family...
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That's a really rare demographic. Most of my friends from high school and college aren't doing the family thing. Out of like a dozen or so people I still keep track of, four of us did the whole get married thing. Two divorced over their spouse cheating. One is separated and living with her mom (again from spousal cheating). The last one who was really awesome and fun to hang out with turned into a moo-moo baby machine and did the whole like marry some slimeball and pop out his horde of kids and they live in some dumpy little hick town that's mostly losers in trailers. She's prolly the closest of us to that family thing, but I think that most of us look down on her for not at least marrying upwards to get someone with some income because she totally had the looks to do better before she turned her uterus into her crane painter boyfriend's personal human xerox machine. I guess there's one other of us who is single and has a toddler, but that doesn't really count.

Anyhow, my point is that there's not much suburban-y weirdness where two people are living together to raise kids, have a dog, and like two cars anymore. That's like...IDK, a handful of percent of the US...a small handful and certainly not any kind of significant demographic to depend on for any business venture that's tied to an area that someone can reach with a car in a timely manner.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
Um, that was like an urban myth thing-y. My grandfather was one of those people who was totally into that one until we looked it up online for him and he was super grumpy about finding out it was just a made up legend like the whole random ship and lighthouse story.
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Actually, the 100MPG carbs and the like are real (somewhat), just not in the way people think, there are vapor carbs on static RPM engines that can do crazy MPG, however they require preheating, can't run in cold weather, can't change engine RPM because the vapor amount can not be changed easy and it depends on a static efficiency RPM range, and the engines are small and not very powerful, hell, we have fuel injection today that is already pass this, its just people who don't understand cars and engines that think when they hear about these crazy MPG that it means a normal everyday car that is being hidden from us.
 
BlueFireIce said:
Actually, the 100MPG carbs and the like are real (somewhat), just not in the way people think, there are vapor carbs on static RPM engines that can do crazy MPG, however they require preheating, can't run in cold weather, can't change engine RPM because the vapor amount can not be changed easy and it depends on a static efficiency RPM range, and the engines are small and not very powerful, hell, we have fuel injection today that is already pass this, its just people who don't understand cars and engines that think when they hear about these crazy MPG that it means a normal everyday car that is being hidden from us.
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So, I admit I don't really understand all of that, but it sounds like it's possible, but maybe not practical and instead of a government plot to hide something that people could use from them and silence the inventors, it was just a thing-y that wouldn't every get put to use because it wasn't useful. I just kinda figured it was a physics thingy. There's only so much energy in gas and that means that, even with like a super efficient conversion, it can only ever do so much work. (Ack, that's like a trip back to a high school physics class that I didn't wanna remember.)
 
This was coming for Uber, it is funny that every time I bring it up to someone in the office they claim it won't happen.

I explain to them it is like someone opening up next door making the same widget but pays their employees cash under the table, ignores environmental regulations, etc.

I think Uber demonstrated that the nasty cab companies could delivery a better product. I also think if uber just abided by all regulations they would still do better because of the way their business model works. The cost savings that they provide just won't be there.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
So, I admit I don't really understand all of that, but it sounds like it's possible, but maybe not practical and instead of a government plot to hide something that people could use from them and silence the inventors, it was just a thing-y that wouldn't every get put to use because it wasn't useful. I just kinda figured it was a physics thingy. There's only so much energy in gas and that means that, even with like a super efficient conversion, it can only ever do so much work. (Ack, that's like a trip back to a high school physics class that I didn't wanna remember.)
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It was put into use and we have some in use, that are somewhat like those, most are running natural gas these days for burn off on wells etc etc, static RPM works great for some applications, like constant load generators, but they run at a fixed RPM, where cam and timing profiles can be EXTREMELY customized for fuel efficiency to reach the max efficiency for an ICE, but has very little application outside of generators or other fixed RPM motors. We have hit, more or less the max we can out of a ICE, most advancements as of late have not even been about design or fuel systems, as fuel injection is pretty damn good today, and can work in an engine with varying RPM, but the advancements today are allot to do with coatings and material selection. Such as oil shedding coatings on cranks to reduce drag and windage, ceramic coatings on pistons and chambers/valves, new dry film lube coatings for piston skirts and DLC (Diamond Like Carbon) coatings on cylinder sleeves, and light weight forged pistons, rods and cranks are becoming more common etc etc.

But, like anything else, when highly specialized you can do some crazy things with an ICE, but there are always trade offs, because as you stated, there is a very real thermal and physical limit to efficacy that can be achieved with one. Having worked on race cars for a living when I was younger and still very much so a hobby now, the people who make the claims to these 500MPG cars have little to no understanding of cars or ICEs.
 
krotch said:
Imagine a 2 car suburban family, where the two adults both work in different locations and both need a car to go to work and there is no public transport, so they'll need their car for things throughout the day like...getting food.

You can't lump everyone together, cause everyone can have very different needs. You provide options, but you don't take away options.

Do I think driverless cars are a good idea? Yes, but I don't expect to see them completely replace normal cars, not until you change everyone's mindset, which I don't see happening anytime in my lifetime. Definitely not changing mine. I own 4 cars and I'm single.
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Its just and example he is giving of the possible utilization, some families will require 2 cars even if they are autodrive, I doubt you will see a large reduction in ownership of cars.

I don't see why people need to drive cars 99% of driving is just a waste of my time.

You as a single person who owns 4 cars is defiantly an outlire as opposed to a 2 car suburban family.
 
This is prime example of how bad government regulation can be. Because the lobby for Taxi has a hold on government, we see sky high prices, in old, dirty cabs with rude and poor drivers. The market wants and supports options and Uber, yet the government is fighting against it. Back when I traveled often I took taxis many times a day, some of the cabs were a joke on nasty/smell, often times with very rude drivers, price was also crazy at times, I remember going to the mall (very short distance), I called a van cab, by the time everyone got it, the meter was at almost 40 bucks and we had not even moved yet.

Uber cars on the other hand, I have yet to get a rude driver, every car has been new and spotless, and prices were far lower than any taxi service I have ever seen, example: Ride taken in taxi one month ago was $27, same ride not a week ago in an Uber car, $9.89. Yes, all the Taxi licensing and regulation has saved us from horrible services like this!! :rolleyes:
 
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