The race is on for autonomous on-demand cars. Last July Uber CEO Travis Kalanick promised to buy 500,000 Teslas if they can deliver the autonomous whips by 2020. Today General Motors announced they invested half a billion dollars into competitor Lyft. The dollars are earmarked for the development of the autonomous grid. This is the biggest opportunity in the world right now.
Most of you cannot wrap your mind around this concept because you were born and raised in towns built around the car. Cities that were once marvelous to walk and take public transit have been slaughtered by 10-lane superhighways. Whole city blocks were leveled and replaced with parking lots. Insane, stupid, and for a long time, seemingly irreversible.
Then Uber came along and made a kickass app to cue up your own personal driver. Soon others like Lyft followed.
Now all we need are autonomous cars. This will eliminate the need to own a personal car. Cities can stop worrying about providing parking spots. Life will improve. And someone is going to make.a.fortune.
It comes down to who you think wins this game. GM is throwing some major funding behind Lyft. I am partial to Uber because on New Years eve their app was working in Philly and Lyft wasn’t. Nevertheless, one cannot solely base decisions off their microcosm. This could be huge for GM and Lyft. Keep it on your radar.
Click here to read the full news release on PR Newswire.
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Raul, I’ve been long GM for about a year now. I believe it’s very undervalued, and this news made me quite happy, even if it’s still a bit in the future.
While Uber has the advantage from a funding standpoint ($6.6B vs. Lyft’s $2.0B), Lyft has a strategic partner who not only has knowledge, but most importantly connections. And to be more clear political connections and lobbyists. GM has built a relationship with the federal government for plenty of years, and Tesla (while an awesome company), definitely ruffles a lot of feathers and that’s an understatement for Uber.
good point, the autonomous grid will take political backing. Hopefully the politicians can be kept on a leash a treated like the dogs they are; fed regularly and told their special occasionally, but not too often.