The end of the driver's license: Uber exec calls car ownership 'the most inefficient asset' and says no one will need one in 15 to 20 years

Uber’s top operations executive thinks a very familiar American ritual may not survive the next couple of decades. Andrew Macdonald said on the 20VC podcast that in 15 to 20 years, people may not own cars at all and may not even need driver’s licenses if getting around becomes easy enough through ride-hailing, bikes, scooters, public transit, and autonomous vehicles.

His argument is partly about money. New vehicle prices have risen 30% over the last six years, he said, while the average car spends most of its life parked. Macdonald called the individually owned car “the most inefficient asset” people buy, pointing to depreciation, the fact that it sits idle 98% of the day, and the ongoing cost of insurance even when it isn’t being driven.

That vision would be a sharp break from the old idea that car ownership is part of the American Dream. It would also fit Uber’s business interests neatly. The company backed away from building its own self-driving fleet, but it has been working more like a platform for autonomous vehicles, including partnerships with Waymo and Waabi.

Macdonald’s pitch also comes with some corporate halo polishing. On the podcast, host Harry Stebbings said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi described him as an “execution machine” who is good at driving people. Macdonald said his own playbook is simpler than that: make decisions based on what’s best for the company, and know the business deeply. After 14 years at Uber, he said he understands ride-hailing better than anyone in the world.

The larger theme is hard to miss. Uber is betting that cars will become services, not possessions, and that the software layer will matter more than the driveway. The same logic is now showing up everywhere: in Tesla’s robot dreams, in Uber’s autonomous ambitions, and in the quiet hope that human inconvenience can finally be engineered into a subscription.