Robots are stealing our jobs. Again. In fact, they’ve been stealing our jobs in one way or another since the dawn of the industrial revolution.
Despite the fact that it’s currently banned in Los Angeles, UberX is defiantly still up and running. I used it for the first time this weekend. This so-called ride-sharing service from San Francisco-based Uber Technologies is supposedly the future of cabs. Much like similar services Lyft and Sidecar, UberX seeks to "disrupt" the taxi industry by using average people with a car (and without a taxi license) to shuttle others around. But it’s pretty clear that they shouldn’t be allowed to.
The number of cabs per capita in Austin is probably quite reasonable for a city of under a million, but during SXSW, taxis can be difficult to come by, plagued by ridiculous traffic and a surge of carless visitors. So, to make our way from last night’s Engadget+gdgt event to our hotel — a roughly 15-mile drive north of the city center — we turned to Uber’s Android app. Selecting the UberX option, we were told, would net us a free ride, but we were expecting a clunky cab to pull up; instead, we got a brand new Tesla Model S, with a tie-clad chauffeur to match. The driver, we learned, was on loan from Dallas, while the gorgeous all-electric car was likely to quietly roll its way to distant roads following this week’s Central Texas geek fest. But we weren’t leaving Austin without our ride.
Gallery: Tesla Model S with UberX
Filed under: Transportation