Lossmaking Giant Uber, Hoping To Stay Around For Decades, Says It is Aiming For 100% Zero-Emission Transport by 2040 (venturebeat.com) 45
Uber has announced several new commitments, initiatives, and product expansions designed to address climate change. From a report: In a virtual press event this morning, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi cited the positive impact that the global lockdown has had on the environment, with "blue skies replacing smog above city skylines" and many cities using the pandemic to "rethink their infrastructure." However, with pollution rising again as normal routines resume, Khosrowshahi said that rather than "going back to business as usual," it's making moves to reduce its environmental impact. "COVID-19 didn't change the fact that climate change remains an existential threat and crisis that needs every person, every business in every nation to act," Khosrowshahi said. First up, Uber said that it intends to be an entirely zero-emission platform by 2040, with 100% of all rides booked through its app -- be that cars, public transit, or scooters -- taking place on zero-emission vehicles. Before that, though, the company is setting a goal of 2030 for all cars on its platform to transition to electric in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, as well as hitting net-zero emissions on the corporate side of its business during the same time frame.
Breaking News (Score:4, Funny)
Uber to become rickshaw hire company by 2040.
Finding a way to monetize farts. (Score:2)
That's all that matters.
Re:Breaking News (Score:4, Interesting)
the company is setting a goal of 2030 for all cars on its platform to transition to electric in the U.S., Canada, and Europe
And how exactly will they do this? Uber doesn't own any cars. Their whole scam is based on people using their own car to drive for Uber.
So Uber is going to demand that everyone driving for them must own an electric car. Which is going to result in (a) A shortage of drivers and/or (b) People buying the smallest cheapest electric car they can get, which isn't going to be a very good experience for passengers.
These assholes can't go out of business soon enough.
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the company is setting a goal of 2030 for all cars on its platform to transition to electric in the U.S., Canada, and Europe
And how exactly will they do this? Uber doesn't own any cars. Their whole scam is based on people using their own car to drive for Uber.
So Uber is going to demand that everyone driving for them must own an electric car. Which is going to result in (a) A shortage of drivers and/or (b) People buying the smallest cheapest electric car they can get, which isn't going to be a very good experience for passengers.
These assholes can't go out of business soon enough.
I don't understand how they won't be out of business due to the dropoff in demand alone.
I mean fuck, even Greed will be convinced by 2030 that remote work is cheaper and DOES work.
Re: Breaking News (Score:2)
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What is happening is changes in urban planning. Larger buildings comprising, retail, commercial and residential in their design, this at high and medium density. A huge improvement in walkability and if people have to pay for a car park whether part time or permanent a lot of people will not bother and just work on walkability and delivery.
Keep in mind a cluster of nine large buildings and how they would end up with different commercial and retail tenants and the residents can readily walk to all 9 buildin
Genius (Score:5, Funny)
Lossmaking Giant Uber... (Score:2)
Lossmaking Giant Uber
Is it me, or have the headlines on /. become harder to understand recently?
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Yeah, "lossmaking" isn't a word I see much, and by that I mean not at all. How do you "make" a loss? You can make a gain, but you incur or suffer a loss. Oh well, it's not as if Slashdot editors are known for literacy.
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Also, the fact that they are "lossmaking" has nothing to do with the story.
And they are not a "giant". Uber has about 27k employees. That is a tiny fraction of the size of the real tech giants.
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And they are not a "giant". Uber has about 27k employees. That is a tiny fraction of the size of the real tech giants.
I think "giant" refers to the magnitude of their annual losses, not to their size.
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Yeah, "lossmaking" isn't a word I see much, and by that I mean not at all. How do you "make" a loss? You can make a gain, but you incur or suffer a loss. Oh well, it's not as if Slashdot editors are known for literacy.
How can you claim to have a "multi-billion-dollar" company, take it public, and declare in your IPO that you've never made a profit, and you will likely never will?
Here's a hint: Plenty of lossmaking companies have, in the 21st Century.
The "lossmaking" term, is now sadly accurate. It is traditional capitalism that is now fucked. Talk to the idiots on Wall Street that value hype and bullshit over dollars. Don't ask me.
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maybe be more inclusive in the profit and loss. Drivers are getting paid, employees are getting paid. The C-suite are sure as hell getting paid and at least some of the shareholders can profit on upswings and downswings. The only sense this is making a loss is the sense that few people care about.
Oh, and people are getting rides
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I mean, wow.
I just don't see how you sustain anything close to those kinds of numbers through the next recession, whenever that may be.
Re: Lossmaking Giant Uber... (Score:2)
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There are losses, and there are losses:
I mean, wow.
I just don't see how you sustain anything close to those kinds of numbers through the next recession, whenever that may be.
You shouldn't be able to sustain those kinds of numbers in any economy, much less a recession. And yet, their stock price is higher now than it was on Jan 1.
Like I said, it's capitalism that's now fucked, because Greed tossed the rules out the window. A mega-corp will never go bankrupt! After all, they're Too Big To Fail now. Think about that shit, as thousands of small businesses close down forever. Floors me how the morally corrupt are blind to their own demise.
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Are you deliberately being dense? There's a number of very profitable companies that lost money for a great number of years. That's certainly not to say that all loss-making companies will become profitable one day, but obviously Uber is hoping to be an Amazon or a Google.
It's not really insightful of you to point out that they're currently losing a lot of money. The title of the article is doing the exact same thing ("Lossmaking Giant.")
I guess my point is, you are not an intelligent person and you do n
Re: Lossmaking Giant Uber... (Score:1)
These were the fools who bought-out Carnegie Mellon's entire Robotics Dept - considering to be well in the lead over a decade ago. Fat lot of good it's doing them; the so-called "leadership" that Softbank foisted on them is ab
Lots of dumb in Silicon Valley, but to be fair ... (Score:2)
I agree with your general sentiment. For example, WeWork was trying to compete with 1,000 other companies that sublease office space and know how to to do it well. WeWork was doing it poorly, and losing money. Bad investment.
On the other hand, to be fair:
If you happen to be in a new, rapidly growing market, if there are no well-established competitors and the number of customers is quickly growing, the right thing to do is get market share, as much and as fast as you can. Invest / lose plenty of money i
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"Making a loss" is fairly standard business jargon, probably evolved from the simple inversion of "making gains." Business jargon loves to mash words together and turn nouns into verbs and verbs into adverbs, so when you run "making a loss" through the MBA blender you get "lossmaking."
Difficult to understand? Sure. Pointless? Yeah.
Re:Lossmaking Giant Uber... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Lossmaking Giant Uber... (Score:2)
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Sure. (Score:2)
Catapults. (Score:2)
When laws come up, the press releases come out (Score:2)
Uber is just saying "Look at all the good things we're doing that will go away if you stop us from raping employees." Standard corporate BS.
Lame horse needs to be fixed... (Score:1)
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Uber is getting more and more desperate to be something other than the maker of an app that combines e-commerce and Google Maps. In order to justify their billions of investment (and billions more) they have to synergistically disrupt the transportation sector with their unicorny web scale dynamism. Somehow.
Hoping to stay for decades (Score:3)
That separates them from all those firms that wish to go bankrupt in 6 months.
Aiming to be in business in 2030 / 40 (Score:3)
I'm not entirely clear how the 2030 and 2040 goals differ (in 2030 you can book gas-using buses and scooters???) but I'm guessing this policy is based on two assumptions.
1) The new car industry will be mostly electric by 2030.
2) Uber drivers will be driving mostly new cars (and electric makes economic sense for the drivers).
Still, they do seem to be pushing slightly ahead of the trend set by the auto industry, so despite my general dislike for Uber I do hope they succeed on this count.
driver less cars (Score:2)
WTF? (Score:3)
Sounds like an Employer to me (Score:2)
Dictating fuel or engine or car type that their 'independent contractors' must use sure sound like the control of en Employer on their employees. Doesn't this contradict their effort in California with their Proposition to undo Gig-Economy law by claiming they do not control the drivers, they only put passenger and drivers together.
Seems atypically honest. (Score:3)
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I normally strongly doubt Uber's announcements; but I can see a real possibility that "transport provided by Uber" will not be a cause of emissions two decades from now.
I'm pretty sure you could argue that "Transport provided by Uber" is already emissions free, naturally Uber can't be held responsible for the emissions of any of their contractors.
Wecrashed redux (Score:2)
They could do it today :-) (Score:1)
After all, the announcement basically says "we'll only allow people to drive for Uber if they use an electric vehicle". It costs nothing to make that change, and there are already EV drivers about.
Zero emission? (Score:1)