Must-Read: Ben Thompson: Google, Uber, and the Evolution of Transportation-as-a-Service

Must-Read: Ben Thompson: Google, Uber, and the Evolution of Transportation-as-a-Service:

[Why] I ranked… the way I did:

• Ford certainly knows how to build cars, but self-driving technology is a software problem….

• Tesla is a much more technologically advanced company… is already in the mindset of building computers on wheels… has thousands of cars on the road today both capturing data and beta-testing self-driving technology (for better or worse)… [but] has its hands full building the Model 3 before its negative cash flow catches up to it.

• Nutonomy is very interesting, not only because of their technology, but also because of the smart way they are dealing with perhaps the most important piece of transportation-as-a-service: the government…. Singapore has placed strict limits on automobiles for years, and, to put it delicately, Singapore has the government structure to get rid of non-self-driving cars completely. By starting there Nutonomy has a big advantage when it comes to real-world experience and iteration….

That leaves Google and Uber, and… I still like Uber’s chances….

• Self-driving cars is, in Kalanick’s words, “existential” for the company. Never underestimate the motivating power of simple survival….

• I suspect Uber’s routing advantage… is a real one: telling cars where to go at scale is an incredibly difficult problem and Uber has a multi-year head start….

• Any discussion of the threat self-driving cars poses to Uber tends to imagine a world where there are magically tens of thousands if not millions of self-driving cars everywhere immediately…. It’s not at all clear that Google will be willing to make the sort of investment necessary to build a self-driving fleet that could take on Uber….

• Uber has the advantage of only needing to be good-enough….

The next few years will be fascinating…