Erik (HASH) Hersman
Partnership of Google and Uber gradually develops into an open confrontation between the two companies. Prior to this, their interests directly intersected only on the food delivery market, where work UberRush and GoogleExpress services. Now, it’s time for popular car sharing. According to The Wall Street Journal, citing its own sources, Google has plans to launch its own car sharing app called Waze in San Francisco already this autumn. Until now, Waze has been available to the corporation’s employees only.
Waze helps find drivers who are traveling in the same direction as the application’s user. Drivers can use the service to save on gasoline. At that, Alphabet intends to make joint trip rates low to discourage drivers from using the application as a taxi dispatcher. The pilot project set the fare about $ 0.34 for 1 km, which is much cheaper than that of Uber and Lyft. As for the potential clientele, it will be limited by only 25 thousand employees of various companies, with which Google made arrangements. Among them are Wal-Mart and Adobe.
Google and Uber have long been partners. In 2013 the IT-giant has invested $ 258 million in the developing a mobile taxi service. Over time, clash of their interests began to manifest itself more and more clearly. Both companies have high hopes for the market of unmanned vehicles. Uber has signed a cooperation agreement with Volvo. The company’s unmanned project is supported by Otto company, founded by a former Google employee. Moreover, Uber does not even intend to use Google Maps for its future unmanned taxi service: in early August the company announced its intention to invest $ 500 million in development of its own maps. Finally, one of the top managers Alphabet yesterday announced his resignation from the mobile service’s board of directors. This decision was explained by growing conflict of interest.
The largest market of car sharing is centered around developed countries of Western Europe. The leader among European countries is Germany, with share of 30% of the total number of people using such services. Active development of this trend is also observed in France, Spain, Austria and the UK.
Total number of users of car sharing services in Europe is about one million people. The service grows in popularity since it’s beneficial to consumers for several reasons:
• Car owners can save on gasoline;
• Car sharing reduces number of cars on the road, and thus carbon dioxide emissions;
• Smaller number of cars on city highways minimizes possibility of congestion and traffic jams;
• Car sharing reached such a level that leased vehicles are offered individual parking spaces, so there’s no problem with car-stuffed parking.
source: wsj.com
Waze helps find drivers who are traveling in the same direction as the application’s user. Drivers can use the service to save on gasoline. At that, Alphabet intends to make joint trip rates low to discourage drivers from using the application as a taxi dispatcher. The pilot project set the fare about $ 0.34 for 1 km, which is much cheaper than that of Uber and Lyft. As for the potential clientele, it will be limited by only 25 thousand employees of various companies, with which Google made arrangements. Among them are Wal-Mart and Adobe.
Google and Uber have long been partners. In 2013 the IT-giant has invested $ 258 million in the developing a mobile taxi service. Over time, clash of their interests began to manifest itself more and more clearly. Both companies have high hopes for the market of unmanned vehicles. Uber has signed a cooperation agreement with Volvo. The company’s unmanned project is supported by Otto company, founded by a former Google employee. Moreover, Uber does not even intend to use Google Maps for its future unmanned taxi service: in early August the company announced its intention to invest $ 500 million in development of its own maps. Finally, one of the top managers Alphabet yesterday announced his resignation from the mobile service’s board of directors. This decision was explained by growing conflict of interest.
The largest market of car sharing is centered around developed countries of Western Europe. The leader among European countries is Germany, with share of 30% of the total number of people using such services. Active development of this trend is also observed in France, Spain, Austria and the UK.
Total number of users of car sharing services in Europe is about one million people. The service grows in popularity since it’s beneficial to consumers for several reasons:
• Car owners can save on gasoline;
• Car sharing reduces number of cars on the road, and thus carbon dioxide emissions;
• Smaller number of cars on city highways minimizes possibility of congestion and traffic jams;
• Car sharing reached such a level that leased vehicles are offered individual parking spaces, so there’s no problem with car-stuffed parking.
source: wsj.com