Tesla (Nasdaq:TSLA) has made a hard pivot away from the affordable Model 2 and towards a fully autonomous vehicle. Some analysts are saying this spells doom for Uber (Nasdaq: UBER) Are they correct? Uber employs nearly 6 million drivers worldwide, so it would be a major blow to their business if a truly autonomous vehicle were made available. But, how realistic is that today?
Transcript:
Austin, a second question there.
You’re mentioning some skepticism about the scale at which Tesla can crack this autonomy market.
How would you feel if you were an investor in Uber?
This is a company that’s seen strong recent gains.
Is this something that you think has a lot to fear from Tesla’s pivot or do you think they’re fine?
It totally depends on timescale, but I’m going to say, will this destroy Uber? No.
Um, and as we mentioned, autonomous vehicles have been right around the corner, particularly from Tesla for over a decade.
Remember Uber abandoned their own self-driving ambitions after an accident a few years ago, tragically.
And they saw that the technology was just too difficult, and then they addressed that you still have the regulatory hurdle.
And let’s not forget that Uber at this point, it’s an enormous industry and company.
Between drivers and Uber Eats delivery people, they have over 6 million people driving for them worldwide.
That’s almost three times as large as Walmart, Earth’s largest employer.
The political pressure to keep those jobs when the economy is on a nice edge right now, it’s simply too great.
I don’t believe that autonomy is coming for Uber at any time in the next decade.
Beyond that, maybe.
But when you have 6 million people whose livelihood relies on Uber, that’s a huge political pressure to keep them employed.
Also, remember, Uber at this point is also an advertising business.
They’ve got a material advertising division.
I think they’re doing roughly a billion dollars in revenue.
So they’re not strictly just ride handling and eats anymore.
They’ve done a good job trying to diversify into parcel delivery or advertising as well.
So is Tesla going to destroy Uber in the next decade? I vote no.
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