Sure there are lots of losing scenarios. But there are a couple of winning scenarios too, and one - becoming a natural monopoly in mobility services - is a very big win indeed. I assume that the high valuation partially reflects that very small but non-zero probability of success. Sure, the US government doesn't like monopolies, but shutting one down involves proving that consumers are being harmed.
Let's play out the monopoly scenario. Let's also assume that non-autonomous vehicles are banned. I can't imagine any future scenario where that's not true. So we have roads full of Uber vehicles and no other vehicles. The government will choose to get out of the road building and maintenance business. Uber will gladly step in and take on a 100 year lease on the entire road infrastructure. They'll build their own autonomous recharging stations. They'll build the robots that maintain the roads. They'll build the robots that build the robots. Now Uber has really lived up to its name.
So contemplate what an autonomous mobility monopoly would do for Uber's valuation.
Let's play out the monopoly scenario. Let's also assume that non-autonomous vehicles are banned. I can't imagine any future scenario where that's not true. So we have roads full of Uber vehicles and no other vehicles. The government will choose to get out of the road building and maintenance business. Uber will gladly step in and take on a 100 year lease on the entire road infrastructure. They'll build their own autonomous recharging stations. They'll build the robots that maintain the roads. They'll build the robots that build the robots. Now Uber has really lived up to its name.
So contemplate what an autonomous mobility monopoly would do for Uber's valuation.