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BMW: autonomous driving is 'many, many years away'
- peatmoss 10y agoI suspect BWM hopes it is. BMW sells to a lot of auto enthusiasts, i.e. people who willingly pay a premium above and beyond what is strictly needed for transportation. These people want their car, and BMW provides these people with that. Meanwhile, a growing group of people recognize that the average car sits parked, taking up land and depreciating, 95% of the time, and are turning to services such as Lyft, Uber, and Car2go. Once the self-driving car is ready, these fleets will use that convenience to utilize their capital assets at a rate greater than 5%. They, and the consumers who no longer are forced to buy 95% more car than they need, will split the efficiency gains. That 95% under-utilization is the transportation provider's opportunity frontier. On the flip side, the manufacturers are forced into another kind of game. That same opportunity frontier for Lyft-Autonomous is roughly related to the contraction in manufacturing that auto manufacturers will see. My guess is that every auto manufacturer is dreading the autonomous car, while simultaneously investing to have one. So of course BMW wants to cast autonomous cars as far future sci-fi. My guess is that their estimation of their own autonomous capabilities is presented much more optimistically to shareholders.