| Personally, I don't think Uber's strategy is to run out the clock against it's competitor Lyft (B). But to run out the clock against the technical and policy headwinds for self-driving cars. Clearly that's the profitable long term strategy. A lot of people are flabbergasted that Uber seems to be burning cash for a no-expense, non-capital intensive operation. But if you look at it as them using the funding to: 1) own the market, mindshare -- driver subsidies 2) technology investment on logistics infrastructure to support a fleet of driverless cars 3) driverless car tech 4) lobbying for policy change ( on current taxi model, as well as future self driving model ) well then... the amount of funding and cash burning can somewhat be reasonable. NOW, having said all of that. each one of those can are HUGE impediments to deal with for any new company, and yet they're trying to fight them almost simultaneously with huge question marks for policy and technology. They might have a good strategy, but I feel like they might have been 5(10?) years too early. Time will tell... |
That would take a few decades at the current pace. They are currently burning $2.4 billion/year. Lets say it takes 20 years for self driving cars to take over.
In that case it would take $40.8 billion in losses. All the best finding an investor who can give $40 billion and expect nothing in return for 20 years and have hope of recovering any of that even after 20 years.