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Toyota Forms 'Strategic Partnership' With Uber (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Toyota and Uber are forming a "strategic partnership" which will include an investment by the Japanese automaker in the San Francisco-based ride-sharing company. Under the agreement, Uber drivers can lease their vehicles from Toyota and cover their payments through earnings generated as Uber drivers. Toyota says it will invest an undisclosed sum in Uber, which is already the most valuable technology startup in the world. A partnership between Toyota and Uber could help the ride-sharing company solve a lingering question surrounding its self-driving ambitions, namely where its going to get a fleet of cars to equip with its autonomous technology. Toyota, which is the world's largest car manufacturer, is taking self-driving technology very seriously. It recently established the Toyota Research Institute to develop AI technologies in two main areas: autonomous cars and robot helpers for around the home. Last month, Google, Ford, Volvo, Lyft and Uber joined a coalition to help spur the development of self-driving cars, ultimately to make them arrive to the market faster. Meanwhile, Apple made an investment in Uber's Chinese rival Didi.
Self-driving cars with malfunctioning airbags. What could possibly go wrong?
They better make sure the human interface unit robust or some muscle bound austrian-american womaniser will try and rip the thing out.
Toyota is supporting the Republican's hateful push for a gig-based economy.
namely where its going to get a fleet of cars to equip with its autonomous technology.
namely where it's going to get a fleet of cars to equip with its autonomous technology.
FTFY.
Toyota's marketing people must be absolute geniuses. They got the state of California to make Prius lanes (where -only- Priuses by name are allowed to travel in the otherwise HOV lanes on highways), and because of that fact, it pretty much made any commuter who desired to reduce their time sitting in 2-3 hour jams in the Bay Area or LA, morning and afternoon, own one of their vehicles. Now, they get Uber on their side.
Maybe they can make the highway in Austin that is being converted into a tollway free for Prius drivers. That would be a nice thing to have.
Hey, self-driving Uber (or Lyft, etc.) cars would probably reduce the number of rapes and robberies by Uber drivers.
OTOH, Self-driving cars are known to cause traffic accidents – because they obey the speed limits, etc. very exactly.
If I own a self-driving car, why do I need Uber anymore?
The correct term is "piecework subcontractor taxi company". They're not sharing anything - you're paying to be driven to a place of your choice. It's a taxi company that uses legal loopholes to cut costs while increasing risks for its contractors and customers.
did people forget how to walk?
More equity money to keep prodding the behemoth along. When is Uber going to make a profit? Most valuable company in the world, only by bad investors.
This just goes to show that any time there is money for an individual to make, people will line up around the block to get in the way and take it for themselves.
I can't just pick someone up and give them a lift for five bucks - an arrangement between two consenting parties where value is exchanged between individuals in a free market. No, we can't have that. Any time a free-market transaction occurs, the first entity to get in the way is government.
Government must have its tithe. It will do this by creating obstacles that must be overcome under threat of force before the two consenting parties may proceed with their private transaction. These tithes will be huge, especially if there is already an incumbent purchasing government influence with its own tithes.
Then, big corporations get in the way - any corporation that makes anything that is used to facilitate the transaction will attempt to insert itself, as Toyota is doing now. Want to be an Uber driver? Just head on down to your Toyota dealership and lease your Uber-approved transport vehicle. We'll just take it out of your ass.
Before long, Uber drivers will be working for someone else - politicians, lawyers, insurance brokers, car manufacturers, and anyone else who could conceivably get in the way of me giving you a lift to the grocery store.
Why would Uber *want* self-driving cars? Sure, it eliminates the need to pay people and again replace workers with robots, but then Uber would have to admit they are are a Taxi company if they *own* the vehicles.
There's only one way this works: Again, they contract out to people who own the self-driving cars, but anyone that owns such a car would need to have a real job, not a below-minimum-wage Uber job. The car owner goes to work and then, upon reaching his destination, then releases his car to go make more money for him autonomously. (instead of parking the car which stays dormant all day).
Otherwise, Uber will have to buy their own fleet and then claim that the robots themselves are the contractors. Just wait until *they* unionize!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Whenever a CEO touts self-driving cars within 1 year or 5 years, I wonder to myself if they have ever driven a car, or at the very least have they driven in a city?
There is more to driving that following a GPS or Lidar. Even if the accuracy is to the centimeter it doesn't account for a) bad drivers on the road, b) unfavourable road conditions, c) changes to traffic patterns due to any number of reasons.
More realistic would be a system where the car is remote piloted.
https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/05/24/2257258/toyota-forms-strategic-partnership-with-uber#
Why people call Uber ride-sharing company? Do they know what ride-sharing is? Uber are just another taxi-company with a bit smarter app.
Uber is NOT ride sharing. Stop calling it that.
Try it! Library of Babel
but this time its okay because big money Silicon Valley investors are behind the exploitation! They gonna offer garages and food programs too tied into how well you busk for rides? Is Uber gonna pay the insurance on the leased vehicle yet?