Aren't self driving cars good for Uber? My understanding is that Uber's plan in the event that self driving cars become practical is to have a fleet of them which can be summoned by users on demand.
I would imagine that Uber would be investing in self driving cars. I don't think there's as much money in taxiing people around as Uber and others initially thought. Even with the taxi market being artificially constrained the number of taxi driver millionaires seems to be a little low.
At least in some countries and cities getting a taxi at the right times have been a hassle, and somewhat expensive. So even if, like Uber, you can expand the marked and steal customer from traditional taxies, how much money is there really to be made? Getting the profit that currently falls to the drivers seems like a logical next step, if they want to increase their own profit.
Google's an investor in Uber, it's not difficult to connect the dots - Google is interested in applications of its tech, not in owning the entire stack top to bottom.
Self-driving cars are very certainly the future of Uber, and once self-driving tech is mass-available Uber will have the same accessibility to it that Google or Tesla or whomever else does. At that point, they're competing on price and service quality, just like they do with Lyft and Sidecar right now.
I don't see self-driving tech becoming a major sticking point, because it's not like manufacturers are going to only be manufacturing self-driving cars for their own usage once the regulatory hurdles are cleared.
At least in some countries and cities getting a taxi at the right times have been a hassle, and somewhat expensive. So even if, like Uber, you can expand the marked and steal customer from traditional taxies, how much money is there really to be made? Getting the profit that currently falls to the drivers seems like a logical next step, if they want to increase their own profit.