Peter De Lorenzo is uber stupid.

"dinobot666" (dinobot666) 06/18/2014 at 09:19 • Filed to: None

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I always take a bit of time out of my day to browse Auto Extremist on Wednesday morning. I like his insight into the auto industry, the endless praise of GM, the endless vitriol he spews towards Sergio Marchionne, and to a greater extent, Chrysler as a whole... even though he used to work for them.

Anyway, today his pure unmitigated, hand wringing, bowl of not good, high-octane truth comes via way of some new Silicon Valley startup !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and how twentysomethings are too entitled because they want a cell phone app that sends a car to them when they want to go somewhere. This program is apparently a part of the anti-car "intelligentsia" movement that exists entirely in his head, and it's on full boil today. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

A snippet:

"After reading the tide of coverage about Uber appearing in every corner of the media – both new and old – of late, it's clear to me that a considerable portion of Silicon Valley has flat lost their minds, and are hell bent on taking all of us with them.

The most odorous of the articles – in a vast sea of many, I might add - was penned by one Farhad Manjoo, in The New York Times last week. In "With Uber, Less Reason to Own a Car," Manjoo mounted a full-tilt embrace of the anti-car intelligentsia and a targeted indictment of anything and everything to do with the automobile. Manjoo's piece was a outrageous pinwheel of derision and condescension aimed at burying the automobile industry once and for all, to wit, "Uber could pull this off by accomplishing something that has long been seen as a pipe dream among transportation scholars: It has the potential to decrease private car ownership.""

yamahog > dinobot666 06/18/2014 at 09:33

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Yes, heaven forbid this generation utilizes technology to help cut down on drunk driving. According to my father, who was in high school in the mid-80s, almost every weekend there was another high school/college friend crashing a car while drunk. Nowadays among people my age (24), there's no excuse partly because we have cabs, Uber, Lyft, etc, and that's how it should be.

spanfucker retire bitch > dinobot666 06/18/2014 at 09:38

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What an idiot.

My only issue with Uber and other services like them are their ridiculous IPO valuations. But it's not exclusive to them, it's every Sillicon Valley start-up these days that is valued at billions of dollars based on fucking nothing.

We're in the middle of the second Tech bubble. I can't wait to see when it pops.

dinobot666 > yamahog 06/18/2014 at 09:39

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To that, Uber isn't going to harm anything, aside from the traditional taxi service industry, which has been very slow to respond to emerging technology like Uber.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > dinobot666 06/18/2014 at 09:39

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There *is* a bitchy get-off-my-lawn sentiment running through the whole thing, but the observation that there's a whole segment of journalism, nay, culture, promoting a "owning your own car is icky because cars are icky" city-bound fuckwittery? Perhaps that's not as pervasive as DeLorenzo thinks it is, but it definitely exists. Whinging about it like an old lady is the opposite of productive, but the salivation of Manjoo over It has the potential to decrease private car ownership (!1!) is certainly worth remark.

Whether *belief* is more a contributor to the valuation of Uber, or whether (more realistically) its valuation is a reflection on existing taxi services being hidebound and incapable, well, that has yet to be seen.

dinobot666 > spanfucker retire bitch 06/18/2014 at 09:41

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I rode the first dot-com roller coaster right until it crashed into the ground. That being said, I do think that new technologies like Uber, even with their inflated IPO numbers are bringing new ways to travel all over the world. I think it's great, even if I would never use such a service, seeing how I live in rural area.

yamahog > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 06/18/2014 at 09:44

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Is decreasing private car ownership among those who would rather not own a car really that bad, though? Less people on the roads, and cars still being bought by those who want and need them (including taxi/Uber/Lyft drivers). Personally I don't think it would drive production numbers down enough to start affecting prices, and maybe automakers would be more inclined to cater to the casual enthusiasts.

dinobot666 > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 06/18/2014 at 09:44

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Would a few thousand people who give up car ownership and instead rely on services like Uber, public transportation etc., really have a significant impact on any of the major auto manufacturers? Unless they find compelling reasons to put asses back in seats, then people who have given up on car ownership are never going to find a reason to start driving again.

spanfucker retire bitch > dinobot666 06/18/2014 at 09:45

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I've got no issues with services like Uber and Lyft. Just their bullshit valuations, along with every other startup that a financial investment firm even sneezes in the direction of.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > dinobot666 06/18/2014 at 09:49

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All true - though people who have given up on car ownership have arguably shot themselves in the foot/painted themselves into a corner in terms of what they are able to do and how and where they're able to live in future. It's this whole "everything is in the city, why would I ever go outside" sort of parochialism which is all the more poisonous for not recognizing itself.

Meanwhile, the "everybody should live in the cities except the Master Class" fucks need to, well, fuck off.

Compelling reasons to put asses back in seats other than practicality/utility, though? Yes, please - more and faster.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > yamahog 06/18/2014 at 09:59

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These are valid questions, but I suspect I'd rather see more appliances on the road than public transit per se. I'm more a fan of Uber than public transit in a broad sense, because it permits the car to remain *cool* for those who for practical reasons can't keep one up, and it beats hollow typical public transit issues that affect any large-suburbed area - to whit, "you can't get there from here". I think it's a mistake to underestimate the magnitude of paint-huffing that mass-transit enthusiasts in bureaucracy engage in, though - "Uber - finally an excuse to start limiting car ownership!" is not the product of a cogent mind. You can read that as "well, finally people who don't really *need* a car don't have to have one", but that runs a lot deeper with some of these people. "If you lived in the city, you could use things like Uber, and everybody can move to the city and not be burdened by cars! Isn't that great!"

No. No it isn't. The automobile is, was, and shall remain the greatest utility object for the right to freedom of travel known to man. Anyone talking about limits based on what people "need" or worse - *should* need - is immediately suspect.

If nobody's buying appliances, then the availability of *fun* appliances is more at risk. If the market were to shrink more broadly, costs will go up - more enthusiast cars, maybe, but it's no guaranteed thing that they will stay affordable. Cars becoming more "purely" an enthusiast market is the sort of thing that is likely to lead to pricing the entry-level enthusiast out. No thanks.