[spaceman_2020]

There’s a competitor in India called BluSmart right now that’s running all electric, fully owned fleets. The drivers are paid fair hourly wages and thus have no incentive to refuse rides or not wait. The cars are simply parked at earmarked charging spots in the city. Their own vetted drivers can unlock the cars at any point and start picking up passengers before dropping it off at a charging station.

The rides are somehow cheaper, have no surge pricing, and from some insider reports, has profitable unit economics.

Their app isn’t quite as snappy, but it works fine.

They’re eating Uber’s lunch in my city and makes me wonder how Uber is screwing this up so badly.

[metaphor]

> ...fully owned fleets. The drivers are paid fair hourly wages...

> The rides are somehow cheaper, have no surge pricing, and from some insider reports, has profitable unit economics.

So a fleet of depreciating assets with a major infrastructure dependency, lower implied gross margins, and word from insiders of a positive bottom line without publicly disclosed financials to sanity check claims against. Curious to see what their balance sheet looks like.

The entire Asia Pacific geographic region, including India, accounted for 10.9% of Uber's FY22 revenue[1; p. 94]. It's likely more of an incidental snack than full lunch, but it would be funny if Uber lost out to what sounds like an upstart taxi company.

[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1543151/000154315123...

[delfinom]

>So a fleet of depreciating assets

Tax deducting depreciating assets ;)

[stabamole]

And electric, while it might not be as meaningful right now due to starting costs, the reduction in maintenance and operating costs might make the model more viable. And it certainly adds some appeal to environmentally conscious investors for them to be reducing the emissions in India which we know has many areas of poor air quality

[rapnie]

> makes me wonder how Uber is screwing this up so badly

This is just guesswork. May it be related to the VC funding that holds them afload, where at every turn they need to think about the future (and quick-as-possible) 10x return on investment that is in the fine-print of the VC contracts?

Or they may be so imbibed by startup-culture "Greed is good" mentality from the very start, that it is unthinkable to consider not squeezing it, and shaving off for every penny.

[YetAnotherNick]

They just raised $42 million[1]. Where are you getting the info that they are profitable?

[1]: https://www.livemint.com/companies/start-ups/blusmart-mobili...

[LordDragonfang]

People on the Y Combinator tech news site should know better than to think "raising money" is the same thing as "being profitable". (If anything, the two are often anti-correlated - funding rounds often happen before any profit has been shown)

[verve_rat]

So we went full circle back to a taxi company then?

Turns out uber isn't magic and the market settled on taxi companies being a thing that exists for a reason.

[chank]

> profitable unit economics.

That may be, but are they equal or more profitable than the Uber, et al model? I'm willing to bet if it were that they would be doing that instead. These companies are in the U.S. where maxing profits/shareholder value vs. taking care of employee needs (or any other need) is generally the name of the game for a major majority of companies.

[Ar-Curunir]

India is not some unicorn where employee needs are prioritised particularly highly; there’s plenty of egregious labour violations that happen in India.

It’s just that Uber and co are overwrought beasts that never had a successful plan in mind.

[somsak2]

Uber is not profitable