Uber's biggest Chinese rival, Didi Kuaidi, has invested an undisclosed amount in Lyft, according to The Wall Street Journal. It's still unclear how the pink mustache-loving firm will use the money, but it's already begun discussions with its Chinese investors. Didi Kuaidi is a joint venture between Kuaidi Dache and Didi Dache, two of China's former biggest taxi-hailing services, which joined forces earlier this year to stave off Uber's growth in their home country. Turns out part of the merger's strategy is to force the American ride-sharing firm to focus on other markets, including the US, by helping fellow Uber competitors grow. Back in August, it also agreed to back GrabTaxi -- another fellow competitor operating in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Since Uber hasn't exactly been keeping quiet about its plans to conquer China and other Asian nations, it's only natural for the joint venture to protect its business. At the moment, Didi Kuaidi's still the bigger company within the nation, with a value of around $16 billion, but its execs are obviously hoping that this strategy successfully redirects Uber's attention.
Competition for Uber is going to be really important if we're going to have a viable TaaS (Transportation as a Service) infrastructure. Lets be clear, Uber is where Netflix is when they mailed out DVDs... their goal is TaaS with rob-cars, they want to make a dime a mile on every mile everyone in the world drives (very roughly 100 Billion miles a year in the US is 10 Billion a year profit ... just in the US). We have a few years left before automated cars drop the price of TaaS to a point where it's radically cheaper to use a service than to own a car. The cost of operating a battery electric car (BEC) is already dramatically lower than an ICE vehicle 270 miles in a Tesla at 85kwh costs around $10 (that's 4 cents a mile, you'll pay more for tires, for a car that gets 40mpg gas would have to cost less than $1.50 a gallon for this to be true, additionally there is almost no mechanical maintenance on an BEC ), as the legal barriers to robo-cars fall away the availability of robo-cars is going to reach ubiquity rapidly. Anyone who's 14 or younger is probably going to look at car buying as crazy. Advantages: no parking, cheaper transportation, safer and faster transportation, rapid move away from fossil fuels. Disadvantages: huge loss of jobs, complex legal cases, people forced to wake up to automation led job-copalypse.
Friday, September 11, 2015
Chinese ride-sharing company is funding fellow Uber competitors
Uber's biggest Chinese rival, Didi Kuaidi, has invested an undisclosed amount in Lyft, according to The Wall Street Journal. It's still unclear how the pink mustache-loving firm will use the money, but it's already begun discussions with its Chinese investors. Didi Kuaidi is a joint venture between Kuaidi Dache and Didi Dache, two of China's former biggest taxi-hailing services, which joined forces earlier this year to stave off Uber's growth in their home country. Turns out part of the merger's strategy is to force the American ride-sharing firm to focus on other markets, including the US, by helping fellow Uber competitors grow. Back in August, it also agreed to back GrabTaxi -- another fellow competitor operating in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Since Uber hasn't exactly been keeping quiet about its plans to conquer China and other Asian nations, it's only natural for the joint venture to protect its business. At the moment, Didi Kuaidi's still the bigger company within the nation, with a value of around $16 billion, but its execs are obviously hoping that this strategy successfully redirects Uber's attention.
Competition for Uber is going to be really important if we're going to have a viable TaaS (Transportation as a Service) infrastructure. Lets be clear, Uber is where Netflix is when they mailed out DVDs... their goal is TaaS with rob-cars, they want to make a dime a mile on every mile everyone in the world drives (very roughly 100 Billion miles a year in the US is 10 Billion a year profit ... just in the US). We have a few years left before automated cars drop the price of TaaS to a point where it's radically cheaper to use a service than to own a car. The cost of operating a battery electric car (BEC) is already dramatically lower than an ICE vehicle 270 miles in a Tesla at 85kwh costs around $10 (that's 4 cents a mile, you'll pay more for tires, for a car that gets 40mpg gas would have to cost less than $1.50 a gallon for this to be true, additionally there is almost no mechanical maintenance on an BEC ), as the legal barriers to robo-cars fall away the availability of robo-cars is going to reach ubiquity rapidly. Anyone who's 14 or younger is probably going to look at car buying as crazy. Advantages: no parking, cheaper transportation, safer and faster transportation, rapid move away from fossil fuels. Disadvantages: huge loss of jobs, complex legal cases, people forced to wake up to automation led job-copalypse.
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