Google Vs. Uber in the Rush To Drive You Around, Driverless
Even the biggest businesses learn techno-modernity will be constantly stressful for everyone but consumers.
Bloomberg News today reports—without any on-the-record statement from either company—on a burgeoning war between Google and Uber, despite Google being one of Uber's biggest investors.
The details:
Google is preparing to offer its own ride-hailing service, most likely in conjunction with its long-in-development driverless car project. [David] Drummond [chief legal officer and senior vice president of corporate development for Google and a member of Uber's board] has informed Uber's board of this possibility, according to a person close to the Uber board, and Uber executives have seen screenshots of what appears to be a Google ride-sharing app that is currently being used by Google employees. This person, who requested not to be named because the talks are private, said the Uber board is now weighing whether to ask Drummond to resign his position as an Uber board member.
Uber has also reportedly initiated plans to open its own research facility in Pittsburgh, PA to develop its own autonomous vehicle technology, according to a report in Techcrunch…
Google has made no secret of its ambitions to revolutionize transportation with autonomous vehicles…..At the Detroit auto show last month, Chris Urmson, the Google executive in charge of the project, articulated one possible scenario in which autonomous vehicles are patrolling neighborhoods, picking up and dropping off passengers….
Those comments, according to the person familiar with deliberations of the Uber's board, have left executives at Uber deeply concerned, and for good reason. Google is a deep-pocketed, technically sophisticated competitor, and Uber's dependence on the search giant goes far beyond capital. Uber's smartphone applications for drivers and riders are based on Google Maps, which gives Google a fire hose of data about transportation patterns within cities. Uber would be crippled if it lost access to the industry-leading mapping application, and the alternatives — such as AOL's MapQuest, Apple Maps, and a host of regional players — are widely seen as inferior.
Google's entrance into the ride-sharing market would also leave Uber without a partner in the suddenly plausible future where cars without steering wheels roam the streets. Uber will either have to develop the technology itself or form an alliance with another company if it wanted to offer autonomous vehicles within its fleet…
I discussed Uber boss Travis Kalanick's long term plans for driverless vehicles in my big November feature on the rise and struggles of e-hailed ride services.
Last week in the context of Uber's new report on how its drivers tend to earn, I discussed how the world of techno-modernity promises endless competitive chaotic hassles for everyone but customers, and how no industry leader can rest on laurels and expect profits and/or market valuations to rise eternally. This Google vs. Uber story is more evidence of that.
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Why doesn’t UBER also employ rickshaws?
I would hire out a rickshaw all the time.
Greenies should love that idea. I bet that if there was a nationwide rickshaw service, every eco freak would use it exclusively. Hey look, there went Al Gore in a rickshaw!
I would just use it to make sure their sweat was earning my dollars. Maybe i’d pack my own buggy whip… who knows.
Orphan children pulling the rickshaw.
of course.
Rickshaws pulled by rescue horses, dogs, and cats.
Pedicabs?
Get a pedicure on your way to where you’re going? Market opportunity!
Driverless cars are literally a thousand years away from being practical. Uber is nothing to fear there. On the plus side, Google may have the weight to get the socialists who run our major cities to not criminalize ride-sharing.
“640K ought to be enough for anybody.”
UPS will switch to pilotless planes within a decade.
Driverless cars are only slightly harder.
Literally a thousand years.
Literally? Seriously literally?
Regulations along make this at least two thousand years away.
*alone
How many million miles is the google car at now?
It has a better driving record than I do.
Google Maps app for android phone is by far the best navigation app I’ve ever used. I stopped using my Garmin GPS, it sucks badly in comparison.
I’m talking about a free app. Is the one Uber drivers use something different?
“free”
They use the same thing, but the fear is, I think, that once Google has become dominant in mapping (which they have) and have ways to monetize that dominance (which they’re rapidly approaching) then Google will restructure their map apps in such a way that moochers won’t have the same access (or have to pay for that access) as Google’s apps will.
Then, like the Spanish newspapers, who freaked when Google walked away, they’ll seek government compulsion to force Google to give them that access.
Then, like the Spanish newspapers, who freaked when Google walked away, they’ll seek government compulsion to force Google to give them that access.
I’m glad you said this because I was about to. Uber is exactly the kind of company to demand regulators compel google maps as a Human Right.
My girlfriend complains about Google Maps for Android. She claims they changed something, and now it insists on turn-by-turn instructions instead of her preferred method of just showing a map.
?
Yeah, just launch google maps. Works fine on android.
You should consider Waze. Google Maps is great but Waze gives you traffic intel.
I will use any driverless service that has the good sense to name themselves JohnnyCab.
That name could make wiminz folk feel afraid and unsafe.
When I think of driverless cabs. I imagine what gets left behind in them by the previous riders who didn’t give a shit, and which the automated system can’t see. Or smell.
I’d imagine that the cabs would be returned to the depot regularly for inspections – like 2-4 times a day.
*I’d* have a camera in there also, with a mic/speaker.
‘Cause you know people are going to screw in them.
“Taxi revenge pr0n”
The only techno-modernity regarding transportation that I’m interested in is having my own personal flying car that I can fly in a straight line at a minimum of 500 mph to wherever I want to go.
The only thing better than that would be instant teleportation.
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