• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, April 11, 2019

Uber has been putting some serious money into future transportation technologies like self-driving cars.

The ride-hailing company filed its long-anticipated IPO prospectus on Thursday, and it is filled with insights into the strategies, approaches and risks that await down the road.

Last year alone, Uber spent $457 million of its $1.5 billion research and development costs on autonomous vehicle technologies, with the stated expectation of increasing those expenditures in the near term.

However, Uber does not appear to have high expectations for self-driving vehicles dominating the roads anytime soon.  “We believe that there will be a long period of hybrid autonomy, in which autonomous vehicles will be deployed gradually against specific use cases while drivers continue to serve most consumer demand,” states the prospectus.

The prospectus also contains numerous of data points, both in revenue and assorted stats, with plenty of mentions of “billions,” such as:

• $3.5 billion – Revenue from ridesharing in 2016
• $9.2 billion – Revenue from ridesharing in 2018
• 26 billion – Miles traveled on Uber platform in 2018
• $7.9 billion – Gross bookings for Uber Eats in 2018
• 1.5 billion – Trips on the Uber platform in the last quarter of 2018
• $78.2 billion – Earned by Uber drivers since 2015
• $49.8 billion – Gross bookings in 2018
• $11.3 billion – Gross revenue for 2018
• $1 billion – Net income for 2018
• $3.1 billion – Purchase price of Careem, based in Dubai
• $7.9 billion – Accumulated deficit at end of 2018
• $4 billion – Net loss for 2017
• $1.8 billion – Loss in earnings before interest, tax, depreciate and amortization (EBITDA) in 2018

The filing also contains the obvious cautions to potential investors. It states:

“We have incurred significant losses since inception, including in the United States and other major markets. We expect our operating expenses to increase significantly in the foreseeable future, and we may not achieve profitability.

“We will need to generate and sustain increased revenue levels and decrease proportionate expenses in future periods to achieve profitability in many of our largest markets, including in the United States, and even if we do, we may not be able to maintain or increase profitability.”

Uber is following the Lyft IPO last month, whose stock hit a high of $88 and its recent low of $60.