Uber can get me to the airport for $45, but Lyft says it can do it for $39. For many, the only difference here is $6, even if some prefer one brand over the other. These companies say the solution to the price war is autonomous driving. Once Uber and Lyft only need to maintain fleet of driverless taxis, they won't be stuck collecting just a percentage of the fare -- they'll get the whole thing.
How does this even make sense? Now they don't need to maintain any fleet at all! Maintaining a fleet is expensive! Drivers are actually cheap! Maybe replacing labor costs with capital costs is cheaper, but not necessarily! Especially when your "labor" is gig workers.
Even the fantasy robot taxi is hardly an obvious slam drunk, and the fantasy robot taxi is not going to be with us any time soon.