Mr. Khosrowshahi has said Uber could go public in as little as 18 months. The threat of a London shutdown is likely to raise new questions among potential investors about the company’s global growth prospects.
“The truth is that there is a high cost to a bad reputation,” Mr. Khosrowshahi said Friday in an internal email reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “Irrespective of whether we did everything that is being said about us in London today (and to be clear, I don’t think we did), it really matters what people think of us.”
.. the company lost at least $3 billion last year on sales of $6.5 billion
.. At the same time, Uber has abandoned efforts to establish an independent foothold in China and Russia.
.. “3.5 million Londoners who use our app…will be astounded by this decision.” He said the regulator and London’s mayor had “caved in” to pressure from a small group of people “who wanted to restrict customer choice.” He said 40,000 licensed Uber drivers in London could lose work.
.. In 2015, London Transport proposed a raft of rules that would restrict Uber, including requiring a mandatory five-minute wait time between ordering a ride and pickup.
.. The authority didn’t provide details on specific violations, but said Uber fell short in a number of areas, including its approach to driver background checks and reporting serious criminal offenses.
.. As part of Greyball, Uber has been able to use software to hide its drivers from government officials by showing them dummy versions of its app with fake cars trawling the streets.
.. The relatively high cost of a black cab has helped make Uber popular here. A four-mile trip in the middle of a weekday costing at least £16 ($21.64) in a black cab, compared with £8 on Uber