I got a D in my only economics class, but I think that I've seen comparative advantage used to mean that "X is better at doing Y than doing Z", whereas competitive advantage is "X is better at doing Y than Z is at doing Y".
If you're not using it as jargon, then the fact that it is jargon might be confusing.
A canonical example would be the doctor who is a better secretary than their secretary (produces more value per hour, looking only at secretarial value). The secretary still has a comparative advantage in secretarial labor because they forgo $0 of doctor income to work that job, while the doctor would forgo $100/hour they could be earning as a doctor in order to work as a secretary.
This is true even though the doctor has an absolute (or competitive) advantage in secretarial work.
The real test for whether something is financially optimal is if you have a comparative, not absolute advantage.
Uber not having a competitive/absolute advantage in SDCs would also be a reason not to do it, because of the details of this case, but comparative advantage is correct as well, though perhaps an unnecessarily strong criterion for the point I needed to make.
Yes, however I don't see a relevant difference between that and my phrasing.
It still looks to me as though you were clearly describing a lack of competitive advantage, while using the word comparative. Sure, you can discuss comparative advantage if you want.
Even so, this never made sense as a business strategy, unless Uber somehow has a comparative advantage in achieving self-driving cars and then can get a long monopoly on them.
If they don't -- if others have SDCs around the same time, then sure, their costs go way down, but they can also charge a lot less, because the competition has the same "advantage"!
It's like:
"Hey, man, do you really think your grocery store can make those superhuge profits when you sell at the wholesale price?"
'Oh, no, I have a plan. You know those barcodes they're putting on products now? I'm going to invent a way to integrate that with the checkouts, and boom, I don't have to pay for people to put price tags on. Labor costs go way down!'
Same problem: "No, you're not. Someone better at that will, and they'll sell the tech to all grocery stores."
There was never a reason to believe Kalanick's operation as it stood in 2010/11 had that comparative advantage, so that strategy never made sense. And today, not surprisingly, Uber is one of the worst at SDCs, and is correspondingly unlikely to have that advantage.