Uber is moving its self-driving cars from San Francisco to Arizona
So, Uber:<p>Bloomberg says that their Q3 net revenue is 1.7B, with a loss of 800M.  That makes their overall profit margin approximately -50%.<p>To say that this is not a good sign is a significant understatement.  Yearly figures would be about $5.5B in revenue, loss of about $3B, so expenditures of $8.5B.<p>Let&#x27;s say that $2B in expenditures are essentially waste or research projects with no very immediate prospect of return.  That leaves it with a loss of -$1B on revenues of $5.5B.<p>Any further expenditure cutting is going to result in loss of revenue as well -- it&#x27;s super hard to see how it could conceivably get to +$1B in net profit.  It&#x27;s also super hard to see how it can really substantially increase its revenues without yet further cutting its margins.  There are no large markets left for it to enter, so how does it entice more ridership except by cutting fares?<p>But even if it did manage to get to $1B or $2B in profit, that&#x27;s <i>not enough</i>.  It&#x27;s allegedly a $75B company!<p>Uber stipulates that it shouldn&#x27;t have to register its cars as self-driving, because <i>they aren&#x27;t advanced enough</i> to meet the definition.  It compares itself to Tesla: automated lane-keeping + adaptive cruise control.  If we take Uber at its word, that is <i>not</i> a good sign for it to dig itself out of its terrible revenue situation via being first to market with automated vehicles.<p>My guess:  Uber&#x27;s investors have realized that when the music stops, there are about half as many chairs as people.  They&#x27;re trying to get it to pull together some kind of IPO so they can dump at least some of their losses on public investors, and Uber is trying to desperately spin along the pixie dust stories until it can get itself into some shape to IPO.  That means avoiding California&#x27;s reporting requirements for driverless cars because only by claiming that they have a viable automated car program do they have some kind of story about how they might eventually make a profit.<p>The sad thing is that there is almost certainly a very good, modestly-sized company in Uber that plugs along making $100M a year in profit on $1B in revenue as a taxi company.  But they can&#x27;t go back down to that company anymore.