Speaker 1: Welcome to Zero. I am Akshatrati. This week, can Uber
Speaker 1: Go Green? It may surprise you to learn that Europe's
Speaker 1: biggest lobbyist for electric cars isn't an automaker or the
Speaker 1: battery industry. It's Uber. That's surprising because in recent months
Speaker 1: there has been a slowdown in electric car sales and
Speaker 1: automakers want a reprieve on their green goals. Not Uber,
Speaker 1: though the right hailing company has been leading the charge
Speaker 1: to get regulators to change the rules and get more
Speaker 1: electric vehicles on the road. On this week's episode, I
Speaker 1: got to ask the company CEO, Dara Kosroshai about it.
Speaker 1: He was in London recently making the case that Uber
Speaker 1: customers should op for the electric car in their app,
Speaker 1: even if it means waiting a few extra minutes. As
Speaker 1: an occasional Uber taker, the green feature is something I
Speaker 1: am familiar with and it is a step in the
Speaker 1: right direction, But it's only available in two hundred cities
Speaker 1: out of the ten thousand that have Ubers. As you'll
Speaker 1: hear in the conversation. In twenty twenty, Uber set some
Speaker 1: big goals about going electric for twenty twenty five, twenty
Speaker 1: thirty and twenty forty. It's unlikely that the company will
Speaker 1: meet the twenty twenty five goals, and even the twenty
Speaker 1: thirty goals are going to be a stretch, but the
Speaker 1: company is sticking with them because uberc is going electric
Speaker 1: being good for business, not just for the planet. There
Speaker 1: are other reasons to go electric. We talk about driver
Speaker 1: lesque cars and I tried one of those for the
Speaker 1: first time in San Francisco this summer, and we talk
Speaker 1: about flying taxis a climate solution. I haven't tried yet,
Speaker 1: but we and stop. There few CEOs of major companies
Speaker 1: sit down with a climate journalist, so I asked him
Speaker 1: about carbon accounting and also about a just transition. That's
Speaker 1: why this is one of our longer episodes. Whether you're
Speaker 1: a fan of uber or not, what the company does
Speaker 1: on climate will have a big impact. Welcome to Zero, Dara,
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 2: It's great to be here now.
Speaker 1: I'm an engineer. I studied chemical engineering. You're an engineer.
Speaker 1: You studied electrical engineering. And sometimes I think about the background,
Speaker 1: the education and what that brings to the jobs we do,
Speaker 1: and for me, it's very much being informed by the science,
Speaker 1: being curious about the world, asking good and hard questions.
Speaker 1: Is there anything from your engineering days This is a
Speaker 1: while back that you still carry in running a company
Speaker 1: that's one hundred and fifty billion dollars worth and operates
Speaker 1: in seventy countries.
Speaker 2: Very much so, very much so. And for me, what
Speaker 2: engineering taught me was how to break down complex problems
Speaker 2: into much simpler artifacts and then solve those artifacts and
Speaker 2: then recompute into a more complex answer. I still to
Speaker 2: this day remember And it's a very basic precept vector math, right,
Speaker 2: which is you look at three dimensional problems. And for me,
Speaker 2: I was always like challenging myself figure out the answer
Speaker 2: to the three dimensional problem. When you break it down
Speaker 2: to single dimensionary problems, you get very simple answers and
Speaker 2: you can work your way through it. And I think
Speaker 2: with business and in many things in life, people tend
Speaker 2: to over complicate things and sometimes people want to They
Speaker 2: almost want to show off their ability to understand complexity, etc.
Speaker 2: Those are people who I think succeed and engineering really
Speaker 2: taught me that break down the problem, make it simple
Speaker 2: for yourself, understand what's core and what's not core, and
Speaker 2: then move on the.
Speaker 1: Other thing we do as engineers is solve problems.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And have problems.
Speaker 1: When you were made CEO of Uber, there were plenty
Speaker 1: of problems you had to deal with. There was Uber
Speaker 1: having the reputation of a toxic culture. It seems you've
Speaker 1: changed that and made it a happier place to work.
Speaker 1: Then during the pandemic, people stopped taking ubers because well,
Speaker 1: we were all locked down and you had to pivot
Speaker 1: to deliveries. And that's now nearly half of your revenues.
Speaker 1: And in that same period you also set out ambitious
Speaker 1: climate goals. This is a climate podcast, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about that.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: So in twenty twenty, Uber pledged to be all electric
Speaker 1: in Europe, US and Canada by twenty thirty and everywhere
Speaker 1: else by twenty forty. The company also committed eight hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars toward that goal by twenty twenty five. Your
Speaker 1: latest sustainability report for twenty twenty three says you spent
Speaker 1: about four hundred and forty million dollars. What have you
Speaker 1: put it to work?
Speaker 2: The most significant part of our investment has been incentives
Speaker 2: for drivers to essentially make more money per ride. I
Speaker 2: think that everyone in terms of these climate goals has
Speaker 2: had really good intentions, but they will remain good intentions
Speaker 2: until and unless you can create economic flywheels to really
Speaker 2: start to scale those ambitions into the reality of business.
Speaker 2: And for our business, there's a flywheel that has to happen, right,
Speaker 2: is if you want more riders to take electric rides,
Speaker 2: you actually have to have drivers who are driving evs
Speaker 2: and are hybrids to start with as well. And you
Speaker 2: need the supply in order to create the demand. If
Speaker 2: you don't have enough supply, then if someone asks for
Speaker 2: an Uber Green, they may be waiting twelve thirteen minutes.
Speaker 2: That's not good enough. So we had to get the
Speaker 2: economic flywheel going. And our business is always starts with supply.
Speaker 2: How many drivers, quality drivers can we get on the platform.
Speaker 2: As it related to climate, it's how many drivers can
Speaker 2: we convince to buy the next vehicle, make that purchase
Speaker 2: an EV And as a result, we have to make
Speaker 2: it economically attractive to these drivers. Their vehicles are their offices.
Speaker 2: They make a living with these vehicles. So the majority
Speaker 2: of our investment has gone to create incentives per ride,
Speaker 2: incentives for drivers who are driving EV on Uber to
Speaker 2: make more money. And those incentives originally started fifty cents
Speaker 2: a ride. Now in the US it's based on a
Speaker 2: certain number of rides. You make a special incentive if
Speaker 2: you have over two hundred rides, and we have these
Speaker 2: incentives all over the world. That makes driving an EV
Speaker 2: on a per trip basis more profitable for the average
Speaker 2: Uber driver. That allows them to afford to pay somewhat
Speaker 2: more for those evs because they do tend to be
Speaker 2: more expensive. There is in a secondhand market, and that
Speaker 2: creates a flywheel that we're talking about.
Speaker 1: There's also the question of the upfront cost, because if
Speaker 1: they have to get that extra earning, they have to
Speaker 1: buy that car. And one hope was that you would
Speaker 1: charge say a Londoner, which is me, when I take
Speaker 1: an Uber here, I pay a clean air fee and
Speaker 1: that goes into a pot that would help subsidize the
Speaker 1: buying of the vehicle because it still is on an
Speaker 1: upfront basis most of the time a little more expensive
Speaker 1: than your gasoline car. Has that happened. Have you helped
Speaker 1: drivers subsidize the purchase of the vehicle, not just once
Speaker 1: they have the vehicle, actually make more money and how
Speaker 1: many electric vehicles have you helped?
Speaker 2: Very much? So? So the London has been a huge
Speaker 2: success for us. If you step back. Right now, the
Speaker 2: average Uber driver is moving over to EV's five times
Speaker 2: faster than the average driver. That's a big success, but
Speaker 2: still we got a long way to go. About ten
Speaker 2: percent of or overall miles or EV in Europe and California,
Speaker 2: it's closer to twenty percent. Here in London, we're approaching
Speaker 2: a third of our miles being EV. A big part
Speaker 2: of that was a clean air fund where we are
Speaker 2: reinvesting that clean air fund to make it easier for
Speaker 2: drivers to buy vehicles. There are great deals going on
Speaker 2: with Kias right now in London. It's pretty extraordinary you
Speaker 2: see on the streets here. So that has definitely been
Speaker 2: a success, and I think London again was a tip
Speaker 2: of the spear, so to speak, our top marketplace. More generally,
Speaker 2: what we're trying to do is we're investing in the
Speaker 2: per trip incentive and then we're working with our OEM
Speaker 2: partners to secure discounts on purchase of the vehicles. We
Speaker 2: also a lot of our drivers may not want to
Speaker 2: jump into EV's cold, so to speak, so we've also
Speaker 2: established rental programs. For example, Hurts is a big partner
Speaker 2: for us that allow drivers to kind of try before
Speaker 2: you buy, Understand what it means to drive an EV
Speaker 2: some of them have charging anxiety, etc. Understand where chargers
Speaker 2: are available, how much time it takes, and then switch
Speaker 2: over from a rental to a purchase as well. So
Speaker 2: hopefully we can work with industry to make it more affordable,
Speaker 2: and then we're going to put our investment, the majority
Speaker 2: of our investment on a per ride basis.
Speaker 1: But how many drivers have said that they've used your
Speaker 1: subsidy to actually buy an electric vehicle?
Speaker 2: So one hundred and eighty two thousand drivers are now
Speaker 2: on evs on the platform. It's about three times what
Speaker 2: it was last year when I was here for first
Speaker 2: Go Get event. How many specific drivers have bought specifically
Speaker 2: because of our discounts, I actually don't know. My guess
Speaker 2: is it's a significant number. But is it over fifty
Speaker 2: or fifty or below fifty, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: About ten percent of all miles driven are electric now
Speaker 1: on the Uber platform. London is far ahead.
Speaker 2: That's a third.
Speaker 1: But the target one you'd set it was for London
Speaker 1: to be one h percent electric by twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Even if it's the end of twenty twenty five, that's
Speaker 1: you know, fifteen months away, how are you going to
Speaker 1: go from a third to one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: I think those targets at this point are going to
Speaker 2: be very difficult to hit for us. And you know
Speaker 2: the fact is that I've always said that climate is
Speaker 2: a team sport, and we need government to come in,
Speaker 2: we need industry to come in. We certainly are leaning
Speaker 2: in with our own pocketboats and with a bunch of
Speaker 2: our innovation as focused on making evs more delightful, available
Speaker 2: for everybody. So while I think those twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: targets will be very challenging for us to hit, we
Speaker 2: got twenty thirty targets. We got twenty forty targets, and
Speaker 2: for us, you know, these targets drive outsize ambition at
Speaker 2: the company. One of the wonderful things that I love
Speaker 2: about Uber is like we put these targets in place,
Speaker 2: the whole team rallies behind them. It excites everyone. We
Speaker 2: have a new sustainability leader, Rebecca, who came from Tesla
Speaker 2: as well, which is one of the leading companies in
Speaker 2: that space. So you know, we're going to push to
Speaker 2: hit those targets. Twenty twenty five is going to be hard,
Speaker 2: but we got our twenty thirty targets that are ambitious,
Speaker 2: and certainly twenty forty targets that are both ambitious and
Speaker 2: I think doable.
Speaker 1: Over the past two years, we've seen a number of
Speaker 1: pioneering sustainability companies face the kinds of challenge you're facing,
Speaker 1: which is set out an ambitious goal. Maybe you're not
Speaker 1: going to be able to hit it, or maybe you're
Speaker 1: able to hit it, but in the process you've had
Speaker 1: to invest money to get there, while your competitors have not.
Speaker 1: So the pioneers get punished one way or another, whether
Speaker 1: they meet the goal or they don't. And a Cambridge
Speaker 1: University report that just recently came out said that pioneering
Speaker 1: companies shouldn't be punished. Instead, one way out for them
Speaker 1: is to lobby governments to raise the ambition for everybody
Speaker 1: to level the playing field for your sector. And that
Speaker 1: is something you're doing now. You announced in September that
Speaker 1: you warn the European Union to have all right heling
Speaker 1: be electric by twenty thirty, and you say climate is
Speaker 1: a team sport. How many other right healing companies or
Speaker 1: taxi companies have joined that lobbying effort.
Speaker 2: I'm not aware of any at this point. And you know,
Speaker 2: I do think that while short term some of the
Speaker 2: pioneering companies, as you have said, may have a disadvantage
Speaker 2: because they're investing where others aren't, I do think that
Speaker 2: long term climate investment makes sense. Right. It's ultimately when
Speaker 2: you look into EV today for an Uber driver, we're
Speaker 2: not telling the Uber driver to buy an EV because
Speaker 2: it's good for the climate now it is, or because
Speaker 2: it's going to help us hit our targets. It is.
Speaker 2: You know that that purchase is going to help us
Speaker 2: hit our targets. We're telling it to buy an EV
Speaker 2: because it makes sense. And if you look over a
Speaker 2: two year to a five year timeframe, you take an
Speaker 2: into account cost of petrol versus charging, you look at
Speaker 2: maintenance costs, it actually makes economic sense for a driver
Speaker 2: to buy an EV. And so I think actually the
Speaker 2: formula that we have is yes, this is the right
Speaker 2: thing to do. It is can we afford to invest
Speaker 2: eight hundred million? We can, and we have. Now it's
Speaker 2: about making the economics work, and I think we're on
Speaker 2: a good path.
Speaker 1: As a platform, and as the largest right hailing platform,
Speaker 1: you also have consumers who may not think green. But
Speaker 1: if it shows up as the first option, which is
Speaker 1: kind of the default, and default is a very powerful
Speaker 1: place to be. It really is you can actually drive
Speaker 1: behavior change. Why just making it easier for somebody to
Speaker 1: get an electric noweres are you doing that?
Speaker 2: Well, Actually, what we're doing now is that many times
Speaker 2: when you order a regular Uber X, you're gonna get
Speaker 2: a Tesla or you will get an EV So it's
Speaker 2: happening to me. Yeah, I mean, if you're trying to change,
Speaker 2: you should have used an Uber Green. But that's okay, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: So you know, we run this marketplace, and the marketplace
Speaker 2: essentially is very flexible in terms of the kind of
Speaker 2: cars that we can dispatch you and obviously we want
Speaker 2: to dispatch an efficient dispatch that's within five six minutes,
Speaker 2: so the driver isn't driving them any empty miles. It's
Speaker 2: important for congestion in the city and emissions in a
Speaker 2: city as well. But what we're seeing is that one
Speaker 2: in four Uber customers actually has had their first experience
Speaker 2: with an EV on Uber. So a lot of what
Speaker 2: we talk about is moving drivers over. But as you know,
Speaker 2: the EV experience as a writer is really nice. It's quiet,
Speaker 2: the cars are new, spacious interiors, especially the backseat, et cetera.
Speaker 2: So I do think that there are these preconceived notions
Speaker 2: about EV's. I think unfortunately EV's have to some extent
Speaker 2: become politicized. Right is are you on the right or left?
Speaker 2: Et cetera. They're just really good products. So to the
Speaker 2: extent that we can increase exposure to this next generation
Speaker 2: of vehicles, which we truly feel are a better way
Speaker 2: going forward and good for the environment, then it can
Speaker 2: be a win win for everybody.
Speaker 1: And I've heard you say that on the Uber platform,
Speaker 1: electric rides get higher tips. Yes, is that the reason
Speaker 1: why they get higher tips? That is just a better ride,
Speaker 1: or is it that the people who are choosing it
Speaker 1: are just I don't know, I'm making a moral judgment here,
Speaker 1: but more moral people who want to support drivers more.
Speaker 2: We think it's a combination of both. You know, it's
Speaker 2: not a directly causal relationship, so there's some correlation there.
Speaker 2: I think you're absolutely right. But the experience is a
Speaker 2: good experience. The ride is a really cool ride. And
Speaker 2: I drive a Tesla, and I'll tell you I've heard
Speaker 2: many times people, first of all, that they have trouble
Speaker 2: with the handle, although they're getting much better at it,
Speaker 2: and when they get in the car, they're like, Wow,
Speaker 2: this is really cool.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: They like it. It's something different and delight usually translates into
Speaker 2: better and then hopefully more tips for the drivers, which
Speaker 2: is great.
Speaker 1: Now I do take Ubergreen most of the time, et cetera.
Speaker 2: I'm doing the experiment.
Speaker 1: But Uber provides electric option or a green option, only
Speaker 1: in two hundred cities. You operate in ten thousand cities.
Speaker 1: Now I've not done the math, but I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: majority of those cities have electric cars now, if not
Speaker 1: all ten thousand, at least five thousand of them. So
Speaker 1: why is the green option still only in two hundred cities.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, we focus on our largest cities, right,
Speaker 2: So the two hundred cities tend to be the cities
Speaker 2: that have the most rides, et cetera. And for us,
Speaker 2: it is about this flywheel, right. We've got to establish
Speaker 2: a supply. A supply you can build demand and the
Speaker 2: flywheel can start working. And the fact is that if
Speaker 2: you try to do things ten thousand times, you're going
Speaker 2: to be less successful if you try to do two
Speaker 2: hundred times. So our ambition is absolutely, we want to
Speaker 2: get to the ten thousand cities, but we have to
Speaker 2: operationalize all this on the ground, and the operationalizing can
Speaker 2: take some time. Now, I would tell you that a
Speaker 2: lot of people focus on cars. Uber is much more
Speaker 2: about other types of transportation. So in many markets now
Speaker 2: we're sponsoring kind of There are electric three wheelers in
Speaker 2: India and increasingly electric two wheelers in a lot of
Speaker 2: Latin American countries, and we're sponsoring that. But the big
Speaker 2: emissions come from cars, which is why the focus is there.
Speaker 1: There's also now an option in Uber in some places,
Speaker 1: at least it's there in the UK where you can
Speaker 1: book public transit. You can book a eurostart to go
Speaker 1: to Paris. How much of the business is coming from
Speaker 1: actually ordering a public transit from the platform.
Speaker 2: It's a small but growing part of our business and
Speaker 2: the growth rates are very impressive. And for us. The
Speaker 2: first theme for us is that our number one competitor
Speaker 2: is personal car ownership, right, and we want in the US,
Speaker 2: we want you to get rid of that second car,
Speaker 2: and in many other places in the world we want
Speaker 2: you to get rid of the car. You know, cars
Speaker 2: are utilized three to four percent of the time, very
Speaker 2: inefficient use of space, very inefficient use of emissions, if
Speaker 2: you want to call it that, et cetera. And so
Speaker 2: what we see is that in cities that have high
Speaker 2: public transit penetration, Uber does very well. Why because people
Speaker 2: use public transit often for community to work, et cetera.
Speaker 2: There are different circumstances where transit and Uber and trains,
Speaker 2: and for example here in London and a lot of
Speaker 2: other cities, line bikes can put together offerings on demand,
Speaker 2: offerings that can serve you in a multiplicity of situations
Speaker 2: that you might face.
Speaker 1: I've been in London for twelve years and I don't
Speaker 1: have a car, and one reason I don't have a
Speaker 1: car is because I can either get a taxi your
Speaker 1: right hailing option and rest of the time transit really work.
Speaker 2: So the theory that customer, so to speak, the.
Speaker 1: Theory makes sense to me. But there's still the goal
Speaker 1: that you have to try and get to electric and
Speaker 1: lobbying on your own is going to be one thing
Speaker 1: you're doing, but that's not going to take you all
Speaker 1: the way. The other thing you're doing now is you
Speaker 1: are partnering with automakers. So you announced a partnership with BYD,
Speaker 1: the Chinese electric car giant really now the world's largest
Speaker 1: electric car maker. Where you want to bring one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand cars onto the Uber platform from bad By when.
Speaker 2: I'd say by twenty thirty, although we don't have a
Speaker 2: specific timeframe there for BYD, but certainly our ambitions are significant,
Speaker 2: and we've always said that climate is a team sport.
Speaker 2: No one company can succeed here, and anyone's success kind
Speaker 2: of adds to the whole right. Climate success in the
Speaker 2: US helps China, Climate success in China helps Europe and
Speaker 2: vice versa. So really, in terms of the ecosystem, we
Speaker 2: need governments to play their part. We need OEMs to
Speaker 2: manufacture a four doable, high quality cars, and then we
Speaker 2: need the charging infrastructure to also come into play, not
Speaker 2: just in the center of cities where a lot of
Speaker 2: more fortunate people live, but in the neighborhoods and areas
Speaker 2: where our drivers live as well, many of whom don't
Speaker 2: have garages to be able to charge overnight. So we're
Speaker 2: working with obviously governments, with OEMs like BID and many
Speaker 2: other OEM partners with charging partners. We announced a great
Speaker 2: venture with Octopus Energy and BID and ourselves to bring
Speaker 2: a thousand chargers to our drivers at incredibly affordable rates
Speaker 2: as well, So it really is working with the ecosystems
Speaker 2: to drive success there. And Bid is a terrific manufacturer.
Speaker 2: They've got scale and they're building excellent cars.
Speaker 1: After the break, I asked Dara what a just climate
Speaker 1: transition would look like for Uber's workforce. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you've been enjoying this episode, please take a moment
Speaker 1: to rate and review the show on Spotify and Apple.
Speaker 1: It helps other listeners find the show. How are you
Speaker 1: going to manage geopolitical tensions that are rising with China
Speaker 1: with the West because your goal to go electric is
Speaker 1: sooner in Western markets in US, Canada and Europe you
Speaker 1: want to be electric by twenty thirty, whereas the rest
Speaker 1: of the world twenty forty. Of course, cheap Chinese evs
Speaker 1: that are good, safe, effective would help your goal, would
Speaker 1: make your life easier. But how will you manage it
Speaker 1: with the geopolitics?
Speaker 2: I think the good news is that there are many
Speaker 2: OEMs and local oem so for example, Tesla is a
Speaker 2: terrific OEM and very popular model in the US. Volkswagen
Speaker 2: and many other European manufacturers are also moving their ev
Speaker 2: offerings and broadening them in ways that are quite constructive.
Speaker 2: So I think their first approaches work with local OEMs
Speaker 2: and encourage them to keep making investments not just in evs,
Speaker 2: but also to develop secondary markets for evs as well.
Speaker 2: About two thirds of our drivers are buying used cars
Speaker 2: versus new cars, so that's an important development as well.
Speaker 2: I think from my standpoint, we can control geopolitics different countries,
Speaker 2: different nations or areas like the EU. They are going
Speaker 2: to make their decisions based on considerations that can't just
Speaker 2: take climate into account, their other considerations, their local manufacturing sectors, economies, etc.
Speaker 2: We think that we have enough flexibility with a player,
Speaker 2: with both local players and then Chinese players, to bring
Speaker 2: these vehicles to the world right and a BYD vehicle
Speaker 2: in Brazil is just as valuable as a BID vehicle
Speaker 2: in London as well. And while tariffs are not a
Speaker 2: good thing for the climate, they may be necessary based
Speaker 2: on what governments are trying to achieve. We think we
Speaker 2: can work with kind of reality as it is and
Speaker 2: accomplish our goals, you know, with or without tariff so
Speaker 2: to speak.
Speaker 1: We've talked about electric vehicles as a new term climate solution.
Speaker 1: You have clear targets, but autonomy and autonomous vehicles can
Speaker 1: also help meet your goal. They are more energy efficient
Speaker 1: and they can be cheaper in the long term, and
Speaker 1: that can be a game changer to try and make
Speaker 1: electric cars a reality. I rode in a Weimo in
Speaker 1: San Francisco two months ago, I think, and I was amazed.
Speaker 2: It was great and how.
Speaker 1: Well it managed. It felt like it was a human
Speaker 1: driving the car, but it felt weird when the steering
Speaker 1: wheel was moving on its own. Yes, and you know,
Speaker 1: I hadn't done one before, so I did go in
Speaker 1: with trepidation, but I walked out just after one and
Speaker 1: I felt good. It was a wow moment.
Speaker 2: It really was.
Speaker 1: And I think about climate solutions all the time. There
Speaker 1: are plenty of good ones, but very few where I
Speaker 1: go wow, and autonomous vehicles can do that. What is
Speaker 1: your vision for Uber and bringing autonomous vehicles to people?
Speaker 2: So if I step back, we think that the future
Speaker 2: for Uber is electric, shared, autonomous, and ultimately multimodal as well.
Speaker 2: We think autonomous brings incredible promise in terms of safety
Speaker 2: and affordability and availability. Ultimately, the autonomous driver it's a
Speaker 2: single driver that just keeps getting better and better and
Speaker 2: better year after year after year. Versus newer drivers who
Speaker 2: have to learn every single time they have to earn
Speaker 2: their license. The autonomous drivers learned its license and is
Speaker 2: just going to get better. So for us, safety is
Speaker 2: incredibly important here. Their footprint is electric with which is great,
Speaker 2: and I share the same exact experience when I first
Speaker 2: took that Weayma it is a delightful, wonderful experience. So
Speaker 2: I think it goes back to what I was talking
Speaker 2: about in terms of evs. The best way to drive
Speaker 2: EV adoption is if the product is great, and the
Speaker 2: product is delightful, and the product is a product that
Speaker 2: drivers love or riders love, and so I do think
Speaker 2: that automis can be a complimentary part of the solution,
Speaker 2: which is, if it's a great experience and it happens
Speaker 2: to be electric, why the heck not? Why isn't that great?
Speaker 2: It also make the streets safer. It'll also hopefully help
Speaker 2: not you, but many give up their personal car as well.
Speaker 2: So it is absolutely part of the formula, but it
Speaker 2: is again it's a part we have to go electric
Speaker 2: shared we think is a really important part of sustainability
Speaker 2: as well, so we're investing actively in building up uber
Speaker 2: x share. Now it's combustion vehicles and evs as well,
Speaker 2: but to get two or more riders in a car
Speaker 2: really helps the climate footprint. Then you have autonomous, and
Speaker 2: then of course you have multimodal, which is transit, et cetera.
Speaker 2: All of it has to come together in order for
Speaker 2: us to get to the promised land, so to speak.
Speaker 1: Uber was early in autonomy, and then it got out
Speaker 1: of autonomy. You sold your business in twenty twenty, and
Speaker 1: now you're back in it with partners, you have way
Speaker 1: more coming onto your platform. You're working with Cruise. Do
Speaker 1: you regret losing the edge?
Speaker 2: No, no, not at all. And I would tell you
Speaker 2: that first and foremost in terms of that decision was
Speaker 2: really what our expertise as a company afforded us. Uber
Speaker 2: is a software company. We move fast. We're constantly innovating,
Speaker 2: pushing the envelope, and that kind of speed and that
Speaker 2: kind of culture is difficult to achieve, both with software
Speaker 2: and hardware. There are very few companies that have done it.
Speaker 2: The pacing of building autonomous, the care that you have
Speaker 2: to take the pacing of building hardware. You know you
Speaker 2: take kind of one shot every three years, so to speak,
Speaker 2: in terms of platforms. It requires a level of perfection
Speaker 2: and a level of planning that wasn't part of the
Speaker 2: Uber DNA. You know, part of innovation is making all
Speaker 2: kinds of mistakes and being okay with it, and being
Speaker 2: okay with that process of making a mistake, learning, gaining
Speaker 2: better the next time, the next time, the next time.
Speaker 2: And the cultures in terms of how we were building
Speaker 2: for marketplace and for eats, was very different from the
Speaker 2: culture of how we were building for Autonomous and they
Speaker 2: are almost two different companies. And ultimately we decided that,
Speaker 2: you know, the main quest for Uber was to build
Speaker 2: this marketplace that allows anyone to get anything, go anywhere,
Speaker 2: really wire up and on demand and logistics system for
Speaker 2: your local city, and then drive it to a sustainable
Speaker 2: future as well. And when I look at the autonomous players,
Speaker 2: you know, the only thing Weimo's working on is autonomy.
Speaker 2: The only thing Cruise is working on is autonomy. Or
Speaker 2: we ride or a wave here. That's their singular passion.
Speaker 2: And I think companies that have singular passions tend to succeed.
Speaker 2: It was time for us to figure out what our
Speaker 2: singular passion is and just like we work with many
Speaker 2: OEMs and many drivers out there, we're going to work
Speaker 2: with many autonomous partners.
Speaker 1: Now they're on your platform in some places. So right now,
Speaker 1: what is the hold up for you to scale it quickly?
Speaker 2: The biggest holdup is availability of autonomous vehicles right it is.
Speaker 2: The technology is still proving itself out. There are very
Speaker 2: few players who have taken the driver out. Wemo is
Speaker 2: one of them. So it really is the pace of
Speaker 2: maturity for autonomous and the regulatory framework as well. Not
Speaker 2: every every country or city has the kind of regulatory
Speaker 2: environment that you need. That is the real hold up.
Speaker 2: And then of course there's hardware. Right these are very
Speaker 2: expensive vehicles today. The economics of autonomous don't pencil out
Speaker 2: based on the revenue you can make on ride share.
Speaker 2: I do think they will pencil out over the next
Speaker 2: five to fifteen years. So it's a combination of technology, hardware, platform,
Speaker 2: and ultimately economics that'll make it work.
Speaker 1: Now. The thing that spooks people, and it did when
Speaker 1: I sat in a Waydow, is that there is no
Speaker 1: human there. And when an autonomous card gets into an
Speaker 1: accident and someone gets killed or hurt, which has happened
Speaker 1: in the past. Regulators can come down, and they can
Speaker 1: come down pretty hard. They can shut down a service
Speaker 1: which they've done, or cause a recall. And the limited
Speaker 1: number of autonomous vehicles that there are, in one way,
Speaker 1: it might feel unfair because humans probably and in numbers,
Speaker 1: actually make more mistakes, yes than robots do now. But
Speaker 1: should we hold robots to a higher standard.
Speaker 2: I think we should, and it may seem illogical in
Speaker 2: some ways or unfair, but I think that people understand
Speaker 2: that humans are fallible. We should be aiming higher for
Speaker 2: autonomous and this technology. How much higher is a debate.
Speaker 2: Should a robot driver does it need to be three
Speaker 2: times better, five towns better, ten times better. I think
Speaker 2: that's up to the regulators. The other consideration is that
Speaker 2: when autonomous makes a mistake in one way or the other,
Speaker 2: there is only one driver who is essentially maybe driving
Speaker 2: one thousand people, ten thousand people, or one hundred thousand people,
Speaker 2: So the cost of a mistake can be significantly higher
Speaker 2: and kind of the blast radius of a potential error
Speaker 2: can be much higher, which again I think logically makes
Speaker 2: sense in terms of the higher hurdle right different drivers,
Speaker 2: human drivers that are making mistakes all the time for
Speaker 2: different reasons, and having one poor driver on the road,
Speaker 2: you have to get off the road. But that threat
Speaker 2: is a localized threat, so to speak. With autonomous the
Speaker 2: driver is much bigger, so to speak. So again, I
Speaker 2: do think it makes sense to hold a higher hurdle,
Speaker 2: higher bar, But ultimately, I think the promise of this technology,
Speaker 2: which is becoming realized, is it will be safer, it
Speaker 2: will save lives, and I think we will be seeing
Speaker 2: it in the next five to fifteen years, and I
Speaker 2: think that's a terrific thing. We will then, I would
Speaker 2: say in the next three to seventy years, start to
Speaker 2: focus on economics. And anytime you build a newer product,
Speaker 2: every company, including us, you're willing to accept lower returns
Speaker 2: because it is a product that's growing. It's an investment
Speaker 2: in the future. I think ultimately the reason why we're
Speaker 2: doing it it is safer, it will be cheaper, and
Speaker 2: so yes, while the margins on autonomous will be lower
Speaker 2: than not autonomous in the early years, we think long
Speaker 2: term it can be great for business and it can
Speaker 2: be great for society.
Speaker 1: So the other thing that is even further out, although
Speaker 1: it could be as real as this year is flying taxis. Yes,
Speaker 1: there is likely to be a Chinese company that may
Speaker 1: have a commercial service before the end of the year,
Speaker 1: and there are a few others waiting in the wings
Speaker 1: stink to be on the Uber platform. Now. I've had
Speaker 1: a long running skeptical fight with a professor of flying taxis,
Speaker 1: and I'm skeptical at is that it's the problem with autonomy.
Speaker 1: If the step towards going to something that is such
Speaker 1: a new mode of transport is so many, it will
Speaker 1: just take longer to get there because people are not familiar,
Speaker 1: people feel trepidation, people will want to see how it goes,
Speaker 1: and that just extends it. The other one is, of course,
Speaker 1: the technology, which has been getting there now, so that
Speaker 1: that's one place where my skepticism has been more moderated
Speaker 1: because the technology is real. You can actually see them
Speaker 1: at least in trials right now, and if one becomes commercial,
Speaker 1: you know it's real. Uber was ahead of the game,
Speaker 1: and an Elevate program that was about flying taxis just
Speaker 1: like the Autonomy one. You shut that down. How are
Speaker 1: you thinking about faying taxis today?
Speaker 2: I think very similarly. And then we merge Elevator into
Speaker 2: joe By Aviation. We have a big investment in joe
Speaker 2: b really for the same reason it was. Building hardware
Speaker 2: is different from building software and networks. But I'm very
Speaker 2: optimistic about what's going on with vertical takeoff and landing.
Speaker 1: Even more so than av you know, I think.
Speaker 2: Av will touch more people, right, and will affect more lives.
Speaker 2: But I think if you step back, the cities of
Speaker 2: the world are building in three dimensions, right, So commercial
Speaker 2: living has gone in three dimensions, residential living has gone
Speaker 2: three dimensions. But our transportation systems are in two dimensions.
Speaker 2: And you know, maybe they have two planes, right, there's
Speaker 2: the on surface and then some places have metro subways, etc.
Speaker 2: But essentially two planes, and or.
Speaker 1: There's the boring company which never worked out, but you.
Speaker 2: Know, you know it's but it's the same idea, right.
Speaker 2: It's no wonder that our transportation infrastructure, no matter how
Speaker 2: much investment goes into it, eventually becomes overwhelmed. And so
Speaker 2: you need to introduce at scale, this third dimension into
Speaker 2: our transportation infrastructure and battery technology, fly by wire technology,
Speaker 2: the sonic envelope of these vehicles. It is happening, and
Speaker 2: I do think that it will start with use cases
Speaker 2: that are specific, you know, call it bus routes, going
Speaker 2: to train stations or airports for example, is a great
Speaker 2: use case. That's what Joe Baviation is starting with. And
Speaker 2: then over a period of time it will expand from
Speaker 2: the you know, I do think in some ways the
Speaker 2: commercial the beginning of the commercial introduction of these two technologies,
Speaker 2: there's going to be quite a competition to see what
Speaker 2: gets commercial faster. Ultimately, autonomous will touch more people, but
Speaker 2: Vitol is absolutely going to be part of our life
Speaker 2: going forward and it will save so much time.
Speaker 1: When you think about climate solutions, there is a tendency,
Speaker 1: the right one to think about carbon as a constraint
Speaker 1: and you want to reduce emissions. That's the point, right,
Speaker 1: this is a climate solution. However, the other dimension is
Speaker 1: how is it a better solution? So we've talked a
Speaker 1: lot about the better solution. Now let's come to the
Speaker 1: carbon constraint. When I look at your sustainability report and
Speaker 1: your carbon accounting, you have Scope one and Scope two emissions,
Speaker 1: which are direct emissions that come from either maybe natural
Speaker 1: gas if it's burned in a building, or power that's
Speaker 1: being supplied to you in the form of coal or
Speaker 1: gas given offices in the world, very small fraction of
Speaker 1: your emissions. Majority of your emissions come from the fuel
Speaker 1: that is used by the drivers driving Uber, and you're
Speaker 1: talking about how that can go electric and eventually that
Speaker 1: electricity becomes decarbonized, so you get to zero. There's a
Speaker 1: portion of your carbon emissions that are embedded in your
Speaker 1: activity that you do not count today. So take deliveries.
Speaker 1: For example, when I order Uber Eat and I am vegetarian,
Speaker 1: so I don't typically order meat. I'll eat it when
Speaker 1: I'm traveling, but never at home. But people do order meat,
Speaker 1: and so if you're ordering a hamburger versus you're ordering dall,
Speaker 1: the common footprint of those deliveries very different. Just like
Speaker 1: you can drive people to take electric cars by changing
Speaker 1: the green option in your app, you could be doing
Speaker 1: the same thing by getting people to buy more vegetarian food.
Speaker 1: But you're not accounting for those emissions today, So that
Speaker 1: doesn't give you the incentive to do it. Why don't
Speaker 1: you have it in.
Speaker 2: Your cost I think it's a great call. It's certainly
Speaker 2: something that we should and we'll look at our focus
Speaker 2: right now in our delivery business is more related to
Speaker 2: the packaging that all food comes from, right, that vegetarian
Speaker 2: meal often comes in a container that is not compostable,
Speaker 2: may not be recyclable, etc. So that's the problem that
Speaker 2: we're trying to take on first. In terms of sustainable packaging,
Speaker 2: we for example, announced a pilot in Paris now to
Speaker 2: fund sustainable packaging in Paris. We now have a marketplace,
Speaker 2: for example, where restaurants can easily identify and buy sustainable
Speaker 2: packaging that applies to every single piece of food or
Speaker 2: even grocery that you buy on Uber Eats, and I
Speaker 2: believe at this point that should be our focus. I
Speaker 2: think once we solve sustainable packaging, or once we feel
Speaker 2: like we have enough momentum and sustainable packaging, because we
Speaker 2: don't today. Even some restaurants are confused about what packaging
Speaker 2: is sustainable versus what is not sustainable. Sometimes they think
Speaker 2: they're being sustainable, they have the best intentions, but technically
Speaker 2: they're not where they need to be. We're very very early,
Speaker 2: unfortunately as it relates to our delivery business, to really
Speaker 2: start to scale sustainable packaging. Once we do that, I'll
Speaker 2: take on your point of view.
Speaker 1: There, you could start at least by accounting for the
Speaker 1: emotions even if you don't set targets. And I appreciate
Speaker 1: these are all hard things and you have to take
Speaker 1: on harder challenges as you solve the easier ones.
Speaker 2: I think the other issue for us with accounting, and
Speaker 2: it's a good point is I'll have to as I
Speaker 2: think about your your issue live, it is going to
Speaker 2: be difficult for us to understand exactly what restaurants are offering. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: the weight of that hamburger, right, two hamburgers may have
Speaker 2: a very different climate profile depending on the size of
Speaker 2: that hamburger, the ingredients, etc. And the fact is, while
Speaker 2: we have a general view of what the ingredient list is,
Speaker 2: it's going to be much harder for us to specifically
Speaker 2: understand what's happening. But again, it is definitely something for
Speaker 2: us to consider.
Speaker 1: It's sort of the power of the platform, which brings
Speaker 1: you supply and demand, is also one where you can
Speaker 1: drive change. And it's not a problem that just Uber
Speaker 1: is dealing with companies like Unilever, you know, who have
Speaker 1: two billion customers, but two million suppliers are also having
Speaker 1: to deal with it. They're having to go to them
Speaker 1: and be like you have to report this because we're
Speaker 1: all in it together. This is how we meet our goals. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a hard problem and you have to think through it,
Speaker 1: but I feel like there are ways in which you
Speaker 1: can get to it. It's an additional step somebody has
Speaker 1: to do, but it makes you a little more conscious
Speaker 1: about both the business as you run it, but also
Speaker 1: the choice so that it can.
Speaker 2: Make and it might make for more healthy eating too,
Speaker 2: so that might not be a bad thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The other thing that comes on climate that we
Speaker 1: we don't talk about when we talk about solutions. We
Speaker 1: talk about technologies, we talk about carbon but the third piece,
Speaker 1: which is crucial is people. I'm sure you've heard of
Speaker 1: the phrase the just transition, the transition that will bring
Speaker 1: people along. Now, let's take one solution autonomous vehicles. That
Speaker 1: will mean eventually fewer people driving cars, so fewer drivers.
Speaker 1: How are you making sure that the drivers who are
Speaker 1: earning their income on Uber today will be ready for
Speaker 1: a future where technology is doing their job instead.
Speaker 2: Well, it is a real issue that we have to
Speaker 2: think about, and we have been very clear with our
Speaker 2: driver based to some extent, our drivers on our platform
Speaker 2: are competing against the next driver who comes onto our platform,
Speaker 2: whether that's a human driver or a robot driver. So
Speaker 2: I think drivers understand how the platform works, and there's
Speaker 2: constantly new supply of drivers coming onto the platform. So
Speaker 2: for us, one is communication being very clear. Second for
Speaker 2: us is finding different use cases. So for example, there
Speaker 2: are going to be real challenges in terms of delivery
Speaker 2: and providing autonomous delivery. It's promising, but coming out of
Speaker 2: the restaurant, putting the food in or delivering the food
Speaker 2: in high rise provides different logistical challenges. Same thing in
Speaker 2: terms of grocery shopping. Right, So one is offering different
Speaker 2: types of work for drivers to be able to transition
Speaker 2: into over a long period of time, maybe they go
Speaker 2: from driving to delivering to shopping. We're even now working
Speaker 2: on actually there's a group of our drivers and some
Speaker 2: non drivers who are working on AI labeling and translation
Speaker 2: and essentially training AI agents as well as another kind
Speaker 2: of work. So that to the extent that there are
Speaker 2: autonomous vehicles coming onto the platform, maybe our drivers are
Speaker 2: training those autonomous vehicles. So we are working with expanding
Speaker 2: the scope of work. But I think the question that
Speaker 2: you're asking, it's a very big question in terms of
Speaker 2: the role of automation in general. Now, I do think
Speaker 2: that there's a drama in terms of our robots going
Speaker 2: to replace the humans. What we've seen over and over
Speaker 2: again in history is that robots complement humans and then
Speaker 2: humans can move on to different kinds of work or
Speaker 2: higher value work. My hope is that the same happens
Speaker 2: in terms of the transportation industry. But we're definitely doing
Speaker 2: our part in terms of expanding the scope of the
Speaker 2: opportunities on the platform.
Speaker 1: And within that same framework there so that the esg.
Speaker 1: The environmental witch we've talked about the social side where
Speaker 1: there has been a move over this period to have
Speaker 1: more and more benefits being given to the drivers. Yes,
Speaker 1: and in some places like here in the UK you
Speaker 1: have vacation pay, in other places you get pensions etc.
Speaker 1: You've said you prefer or it is actually better for
Speaker 1: the driver to have the hybrid choice that they're not
Speaker 1: an employee. They are able to come on the platform
Speaker 1: and leave it when they want. And why is it
Speaker 1: better for them do not have employee benefits?
Speaker 2: Well, the number one, two and three reason why people
Speaker 2: come onto the platform or drivers come onto the platform
Speaker 2: is flexibility. Flexibility and flexibility employment benefits always come with demands, right,
Speaker 2: which is where are you going to work, when are
Speaker 2: you going to work, what are your hours, et cetera.
Speaker 2: So there's a trade off, right. With flexibility, drivers get
Speaker 2: to make their own work hours where they want to go,
Speaker 2: and we think ultimately the best solution is retain flexibility,
Speaker 2: but then add to that certain protections that you associate
Speaker 2: with full time jobs, whether it's a minimum pay or
Speaker 2: pension benefits, time off, insurance, etc. So we think the
Speaker 2: hybrid solution is a better solution. It makes driving for Ruber,
Speaker 2: delivering for Uber more attractive, so our network becomes more
Speaker 2: liquid ETAs get better, improves the quality of our network
Speaker 2: as well. We think that's the right solution going forward.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Tor, Thank you really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to zero and now for the
Speaker 1: sound of the week. That's the driver of the future,
Speaker 1: an algorithm driving away more. Also, please do check out
Speaker 1: an excellent investigation from my colleagues into how Uber has
Speaker 1: been selectively locking out some drivers in New York City
Speaker 1: between rides and thus dramatically reducing their pay. You can
Speaker 1: read that investigation on Bloomberg dot com and it's linked
Speaker 1: in the show notes. If you like this episode, please
Speaker 1: take a moment to rate or review the show on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Share this episode with a friend
Speaker 1: or with someone who owns more than one car. You
Speaker 1: can get in touch at zero pod at bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 1: Zero's producer is might Le Rau, Bloomberg's Head of podcast
Speaker 1: is Stage boun and head of Talk is Brendan Newnan.
Speaker 1: Our theme music is composed by Wonderly Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Aaron Rudkoff, Schawon Wagner, Ethan Steinberg, Jessica Beck, and Monique Molima.
Speaker 1: I am Akshatrati Banks