[angryasian]

yeah this is interesting. I forgot where I read recently but Google needs to build out big depots where the cars can come back and charge etc. Its a huge cost of operations.

Offloading all that to Uber who can basically become a marketplace of robotaxis and service many companies makes a lot of sense for both companies.

[dkrich]

The economics of this seem highly questionable. After all how many robotaxi companies can there possibly be given the costs associated with vehicle ownership and autonomous software development? In a world where it costs nothing to create content or launch a drop shipping business aggregators like meta and Amazon make sense. But if you end up with like three AV providers, Uber seems like an unnecessary middleman in a business where margins are already incredibly tight.

You have to always remember that the competition is a guy in a car charging a couple bucks a mile