[nopinsight]

When I look at their runway and valuation going forward, IPO is the most probable path they will take. But it might imply some risks to the overall startup IPO scene in the future as well.

Apparently Uber is bleeding about $2 billion a year and have only $6.6 billion in cash reserve. If this deal adds $1 billion more cash, then that would only last 4 years.

Since full-scale self-driving cars launching across most major cities is unlikely to happen within 4 years, they will need to either:

1) Charge more and lose even more market share to Lyft. This is unlikely.

2) Raise more cash. IPO seems to be the easiest channel for them now. (Maybe SoftBank will provide it from their massive fund but they might also extract concessions from existing shareholders and buy at a very ‘attractive’ price (for SoftBank) but others will likely resist.)

IPO sounds like a good plan for Uber. But if the price drops precipitously at some point afterward because it is outcompeted by other self-driving companies (e.g. Waymo + Lyft expands self-driving fleets to highly profitable market while Uber’s tech is still not ready) it may result in a chilling effect on the overall startup IPO scene as they are the largest unicorn in existence, and there are many startups that sell themselves as Uber for X. (Public investors may not be as astute as VCs in discerning differences in business models of similar sounding startups.)

[loceng]

IPO is good for Uber - not for society though, who will be the ones to capture the losses.

Also, Tesla often is brought up in this competition - usually mentioned between Uber and Lyft and Chinese companies - however Tesla is positioned to dominate here. I wouldn't doubt that they're working on the apps internally to create the shared vehicle system that Elon speaks of. How many vehicles could Tesla create AT COST spending the $2B / year that Uber is burning? Where Tesla has a fleet of assets on the road ...

[kogepathic]

> How many vehicles could Tesla create AT COST spending the $2B / year that Uber is burning?

While I don't disagree, I think the major question here is "how many vehicles can Tesla create" given their difficulties in scaling Model 3 production.

Tesla could have the best self-driving tech, but if it is exclusive to their cars and they can't manufacture them fast enough, someone else will build their own fleet and win all the market share.

Unfortunately I see Tesla's hurdle being manufacturing volume, and that's a lot harder to solve quickly than fitting sensors to existing cars.

[loceng]

They're a new automotive manufacturing company - being a few months off estimated production for Model 3 isn't a big deal. It's surprisingly good in hindsight.

Their current capacity capability at the factory is 500,000 vehicles annually. I suspect once they launch the Semi and get 500k+ pre-orders of it, they'll be able to get a loan to build or acquire another factory.

As Elon has mentioned many times, designing the automation is magnitudes harder than designing the vehicle itself. They're on an exponential growth path and it's going to be amazing once they're pumping out millions of vehicles annually.

[beager]

> IPO is good for Uber - not for society though, who will be the ones to capture the losses.

I agree with the sentiment, and it baffles me that public markets would consent to shouldering these losses, presumably by overpaying for Uber at and after IPO and riding it back down to sane levels.

[loceng]

It's the controllers of large pools of money who simply make money off of transactions and who are separated from accountability, responsibility, or even caring about incomes who are making the bad decisions.

[elmar]

> Tesla is positioned to dominate here. I wouldn't doubt that they're working on the apps internally to create the shared vehicle system that Elon speaks of.

Is Tesla Preparing to Roll Out its Ride Sharing Program With the Model 3?

http://www.thedrive.com/sheetmetal/13075/is-tesla-preparing-...

[loceng]

Of course they are preparing. Facial recognition, perhaps with voice confirmation - a good idea to have a built-in safety word or phrase so if stated then it silently triggers the authorities to intercept the vehicle - for beginning the vehicle/route to destination; the buttons in trunks should perhaps even notify authorities (?) if they are pressed while the vehicle is moving; it'd go badly for pranks amongst friends ... though hopefully the first occurrences of that will go into the news - would be good marketing anyway - might not be a good idea with further thought.

Edit re: safety word or phrase - It should also trigger recording of audio and video, perhaps they will record video and/or audio to make sure there's no shenanigans; as fun as it might be to have "fun" in a vehicle while getting driven somewhere autonomously, if it's shared then I think we as a society would opt to dissuade that behaviour...

[dump121]

Dara, the new CEO has said they are targeting a 2-3 year time frame for IPO.