One of the biggest questions facing Uber and other companies experimenting with self-driving cars is who will own and maintain all those vehicles without gig workers.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the real estate industry could offer one possible answer to the problem.
While speaking this month at a summit hosted by the “All-In” podcast, Khosrowshahi fielded a question about how Uber would handle ownership of the self-driving cars that it plans to add to its operations in the coming years. All-In posted a video of the conversation on Wednesday.
“You’re going to have financial owners that own big fleets of cars that are on our network,” Khosrowshahi said.
“All of these cars are going to be financeable,” he said.
Before becoming Uber’s top executive, Khosrowshahi was CEO of travel search site Expedia. He said that major hotel brands like Hilton or Marriott don’t typically own their hotels. Like other commercial real estate properties, such as shopping malls, hotels are often owned by real estate investment trusts, or REITs.
“Those hotels are owned by financial-only players,” Khosrowshahi said at the event.
The trusts typically handle many of the expenses of owning the properties, such as maintenance and taxes, while receiving income through rent.
A decade from now, some investors could play a REIT-like role for companies that use lots of self-driving vehicles, Khosrowshahi said at the All-In event.
Uber’s current ride-hailing business has become profitable in part because the company has avoided owning many of its most important assets.
The company’s ride-hailing drivers are independent contractors who use their own cars to shuttle passengers around cities or deliver food to customers’ doors. Uber pays the drivers for each gig that they complete.
While some drivers are eligible for Uber benefits like gas discounts, they are responsible for their own vehicle costs.
While human Uber drivers will likely be around for years, Khosrowshahi also said at the summit that self-driving cars could eventually leave many people out of work. What comes next for those workers represents “a big, big societal question,” he said.
For Uber, the challenge will be finding a business model that has all the benefits of self-driving cars while owning as little as possible.
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