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has their car been a failure? arguably one of the best economic upsides is being the first one to have a fully road-ready autonomous driving system. chromeboo

has their car been a failure? arguably one of the best economic upsides is being the first one to have a fully road-ready autonomous driving system. chromebooks seem to be gaining in popularity (though that may be driven by shortsighted education purchases like the early iPad) their broadband services seem to be incredibly popular in the areas they are servicing. (this is just anecdotal, i havent seen any hard numbers) But i agree, they have had some high-profile failures in recent history, and its possible thats a sign of the organization growing to large/complex/whatever to be successful at exploring new product categories.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago
Their car will be a failure/footnote. Car manufacturers are already doing far more interesting things than Google is in the space. While Google is obsessed with replacing human drivers, and telling people to just trust the car, companies like Volkswagen have worked on self-driving UI that works with the user, telling them before the car makes a maneuver and such. While Google hasn't tested in snow, other car makers (like Ford) have. Google's really only power in the self-driving car space is that Google is rolling out Apple-level marketing on the topic. People associate "self-driving car" with "Google" by default, because that's where all the media hype is. But when it comes down to market time, car manufacturers know how to make cars. They know how to make vehicle interfaces people are comfortable and familiar with. They know how to built reliable, relatively bug-free products that don't need a software update every week to work correctly.
tjl 10y ago
It's not really road-ready. Right now it requires a very precisely mapped set of roads. Plus, they've only been testing it in a state with very good weather. I'm very curious to see how it behaves in a harsh winter. Even then, there's the pretty public mess up with the bus a few months back.
return0 10y ago
Being the first one doesnt guarantee they 'll be the successful one! It's the last one that always gets the market.

ocdtrekkie 10y ago

Their car will be a failure/footnote. Car manufacturers are already doing far more interesting things than Google is in the space. While Google is obsessed with replacing human drivers, and telling people to just trust the car, companies like Volkswagen have worked on self-driving UI that works with the user, telling them before the car makes a maneuver and such. While Google hasn't tested in snow, other car makers (like Ford) have. Google's really only power in the self-driving car space is that Google is rolling out Apple-level marketing on the topic. People associate "self-driving car" with "Google" by default, because that's where all the media hype is. But when it comes down to market time, car manufacturers know how to make cars. They know how to make vehicle interfaces people are comfortable and familiar with. They know how to built reliable, relatively bug-free products that don't need a software update every week to work correctly.

tjl 10y ago

It's not really road-ready. Right now it requires a very precisely mapped set of roads. Plus, they've only been testing it in a state with very good weather. I'm very curious to see how it behaves in a harsh winter. Even then, there's the pretty public mess up with the bus a few months back.

return0 10y ago

Being the first one doesnt guarantee they 'll be the successful one! It's the last one that always gets the market.