Presumably traditional car manufacturers (GM, Ford, Toyota, BMW, etc.), upstart car manufacturers (Tesla), and even other large tech conglomerates (Google, Baidu, etc.).
> They are already in position to just switch over. Others would have to build their network first. It's a running start that depends on them playing their cards right.
Uber won't have a monopoly in self-driving tech. Their running start will get eroded (some would argue quickly) by new challengers (probably regional upstarts rather than a global competitor) that have easy access to self-driving tech (think car manufacturers).
Also, Uber's network is mostly on the software and human (drivers) side of things. If self-driving tech becomes a reality, they'll have to quickly pivot to purchasing and maintaining a large fleet of cars. That's not an easy task at scale and not something that Uber necessarily has an advantage over others.
This is something you can see Tesla having to do the hard way in comparison with their coast to coast supercharger network. There was no physical infrastructure to support their product so they had to build it, and established car dealers already have it which is part of why Tesla overcoming that was such a challenge. If I have a US make car in the US and I am in a moderately populated area I can make a reasonable assumption I can get to a dealer in an hour or two wherever I may be, and Uber would have to overcome that.
An example advantage would be an autonomous car manufacturer entering the market - they can simply blow Uber out of the water on cost alone.
These would be the biggest threat to Uber's market share since they could easily compete on cost and distribution alone.
More knowledge of future rides -> better optimization -> better margins.
Once self-driving cars finally come around, it's going to come down to fleet size and routing optimization, and while Uber can win in the first category, there's no guarantee they can win in the second category.
Google has more money coming in half year than Uber has ever raised, and it's from profits.
The major car companies also have billions of dollars of revenue and collectively they hold hundreds of billions, possibly trillions, of dollars of fully depreciated assets.
Because when I say war chest, I mean Uber is willing to lose it all. Rides are Uber's only revenue source, whereas Google has never made a cent in that industry.
