Uber And Raise universal promise self driving car Just like this year. He promised to end private car ownership. He promised to decongest the biggest cities. He consistently promised cheap rides. He promised to promote use of public transport. He promised profitable business model. He promised a plethora of well-paying jobs.
Heck, they even promised flying cars.
Well, none of them went as promised (but more about that later). Now a new study is piercing one of the promised benefits of Uber and Lyft: reducing pollution. Companies have long insisted that their services are a boon to the environment because they reduce the need for shorter trips, allow pool riders to go in roughly the same direction, and cut unnecessary miles, for example. Eliminating the need to look for street parking.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that riding an Uber shields the air from high amounts of pollutants released from starting a cold vehicle when it is running less efficiently. But this advantage is erased by the need for drivers to detour to wait or fetch their next passenger, a process known as deadheading. The estimated deadheading in 2019 is equivalent to roughly 40% of ride-share miles driven by Lyft and Uber, in six US cities. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon estimated that driving without a passenger increases fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by about 20%, compared to trips made by private vehicles.
The researchers also found that switching from a private car to an on-demand ride, like an Uber or Lyft, increased the outbound cost of a typical trip by 30-35%, or about 35 cents on average, due to additional congestion, collisions. and noise from ride-sharing services.
“This burden is not borne by the individual user, but affects the surrounding community,” reads a summary of research conducted by Jacob Ward, Jeremy Michalek and Constantine Samras. “Society as a whole currently bears these external costs in the form of increased mortality, damage to vehicles and infrastructure, climate effects and increased traffic congestion.”
But as Lyft will have it, “By using Lyft for ride sharing, travelers are helping to reduce the carbon footprint left by our nation’s leading mode of travel. transportation – Driving alone.” An Uber-friendly option was claimed in 2016.
So what about all those other vows? They have proved equally misleading.
Take the city crowd. Uber and Lyft envision a future in which software algorithms would propel each car to host three or more passengers, easing traffic and providing a complement of public transportation options. Instead, commuters have largely abandoned pool rides and public transportation in favor of private trips, leading to city bottlenecks in cities like San Francisco. The duration of traffic jams in urban areas has increased by about 5% since the advent of Uber and Lyft.
Lyft’s president, John Zimmer, once claimed that most rides by 2021 would be in autonomous vehicles, but the company has largely backed away from its self-driving efforts this year, including selling its developmental unit to a Toyota subsidiary. . Uber, which once characterized robotic cars as “existential” for its future, sold its autonomous vehicle division last year following safety and cost concerns.
Ride healing capabilities were considered for everyone except car ownership; Instead, this year, after a fall in 2020, vehicle sales are on the rise again. There is also evidence that Uber and Lyft can actually increase car sales in the cities where they begin operations.
According to several studies, use of public-transit in some areas is declining, despite the companies’ claims, as more consumers opt to jump to Ubers and Lyfts that drive them door-to-door. Before the pandemic prompted users to stay away from overcrowded metro cars and buses.
Underwritten by venture capital, Uber and Lyft hooked users up by offering artificially cheap rides that often undercut traditional yellow cabs. But labor shortages and the dire need to find some way to a profitable future have caused ride-share prices to skyrocket, perhaps to more rational levels.
After burning through billions of venture capital dollars, Uber said it was on its way to profitability last year, using an accounting metric that ignores many of the costs that actually make it unprofitable. This is how CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is forecasting this quarter’s profit. that remains to be seen. Sure, the pandemic had a major impact on ride-sharing, but even though food delivery helped propel Uber’s results, the company lost a staggering $6.8 billion last year, with $6 billion in 2019 losses. After 8.5 billion, supposedly in better times. Lyft hasn’t fared much better, racking up $4.4 billion in combined losses over the same period.
Despite the hype about the companies’ market debuts, some Lyft investors are underwater after more than two years, while Uber shareholders have reaped meager gains. Hard-Winning Business Model.
It’s tempting to chalk most of this down to marketing and typical corporate chest thumping. But companies have circumvented laws for years to help spur growth as well as make drivers the bottom pawn in their race. Unhappy over a California law that would provide drivers with employment status and guaranteed benefits, Uber and Lyft teamed up with DoorDash and other gig companies. He forked over $200 million to support a ballot measure, but ensured that thousands of workers would never receive the dignity of a consistent living wage – apparently in defense of the company’s non-thriving business model. to help. (A state judge has called the law unconstitutional.)
Now, despite the whims of California’s fighting, Lyft and Uber are trying to impose a similar law on Massachusetts with the promise of “historic new benefits” for “app-based ride-share and delivery drivers.” Voters should not fall prey to this.
The companies are correct that they provide a useful service, including food delivery for the homebound, an alternative to drunk driving, and access to transportation in under-served areas. But after years of drooling, it’s hard to believe them any more.
This article is originally from . appeared in
the new York Times.