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I found your reply kind of odd. Why would Waymo get it into the business of selling LIDAR sensors so that hobbyists could use them in their projects when that c

I found your reply kind of odd. Why would Waymo get it into the business of selling LIDAR sensors so that hobbyists could use them in their projects when that clearly isn't their business model. >But since there are no prices, there are no products, there are no actual announcements, it seems to boil down to Google feeling the heat as the company that used to be associated with the notion of bring Self Driving cars to the market. I wonder if they have been doing consumer surveys on what people think about Self Driving cars and finding out that Google is rapidly dropping from the radar of most people. There is a product and it's currently outfitted to FCA Pacifica Hybrid minivans. >They don't make cars, they can't get people to partner with them, and they haven't been successful at showing meaningful progress. Meanwhile in the bay area you can't drive down any freeway and not see some chortling Tesla owner talking to their friends while the car moves them along in rush hour traffic. Waymo was never in the business of making cars. As for not getting anyone to partner with them what exactly would you call their partnership with FCA?

rsp1984 10y ago
I found your reply kind of odd. Why would Waymo get it into the business of selling LIDAR sensors so that hobbyists could use them in their projects when that clearly isn't their business model. Because let me assure you that an affordable, reliable, accurate and mass-produced LiDAR would be a complete game changer in so many industries, not only automotive: Robotics/Drones, AR/VR, industrial, construction, surveillance, etc... Give this technology a small enough package and price and it would go into literally billions of smart devices.
- somberi 10y ago
  I just came across this, and have not used it. May be something you are looking for? http://scanse.io/ http://scanse.io/
  - _joel 10y ago
    Don't forget another solid state scanner, available now with development kits - http://leddartech.com/modules/leddarvu/ http://leddartech.com/modules/leddarvu/
    - rsp1984 10y ago
      Yes, it's early days though. What's currently out there generally lacks speed/coverage and accuracy. The real breakthroughs will come with solid-state LiDAR but it's still a couple years out from mass-market availability. Lots of companies working on it though.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
Fair enough, if it helps here is what is odd. Let's say for the point of argument that Waymo does, in fact, have a LIDAR product that is every bit as good as what everyone else is selling but they can make it at 1/10th the price. For the sake of argument lets say the typical "net profit margin" on a LIDAR unit is 10% (the higher the margin the better this gets). Now if $x is the price of the typical LIDAR unit, and .1x is the profit. and Waymo can make an equivalent unit and sell it profitably at .1x then they could sell their units for .5x (1/2 the price of the current market) and make .4x$ in profit (roughly 4x what the other manufacturers are making). To me that would be a press release that made sense. It would say "We're going to own the LIDAR market with this product, and all the self driving cars from everyone are going to use them and when you multiply by the number of cars that is going to make use billions of dollars." That is a business announcing they have a huge advantage that they are going to use to make huge profits which will keep them in a leadership position for making the gear people use in deploying self driving cars. So for me it was odd that they announce what seems like a huge advantage but they aren't selling it to anyone except their one existing partner who opted not to participate in the press release. How did you interpret their press release?
- petra 10y ago
  One guess: the hardware costs for self driving is tiny relatively, and will go towards zero. But in the ideal case, owning the self-driving transportation network in most major cities, having a strong network effects(assuming shared rides+brand+other stuff) and selling rides, is worth hundreds of billions or more. And not sharing tech, especially possibly superior tech is a good strategic move.
- nostrademons 10y ago
  The LIDAR market is estimated at $1-3B by 2020. The automobile market is estimated at around $1T. Owning a $1B market is pocket change for Alphabet; it's not even worth their while. Being cost-competitive at owning a $1T market would make them the most valuable company on earth. The way I read the press release, it's a way of saying "Self-driving cars are here, they are reliable, and they're not just a rich person's toy. Every car sold on the roads will soon be self-driving, it's the biggest innovation in automobiles since the Model T, and you better have a piece of it or you will be left behind." Then they get all the major auto makers on board, and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, one where they have a monopoly position on the most crucial component (which is actually the software, not the LIDAR). Google is very well acquainted with spending billions of dollars on "free" products as a way of deepening their economic moat on the component they make money on. This is just an extension of this strategy to a market that's at least double the size of the total advertising market they've traditionally gone after.

rsp1984 10y ago

I found your reply kind of odd. Why would Waymo get it into the business of selling LIDAR sensors so that hobbyists could use them in their projects when that clearly isn't their business model. Because let me assure you that an affordable, reliable, accurate and mass-produced LiDAR would be a complete game changer in so many industries, not only automotive: Robotics/Drones, AR/VR, industrial, construction, surveillance, etc... Give this technology a small enough package and price and it would go into literally billions of smart devices.

somberi 10y ago
I just came across this, and have not used it. May be something you are looking for? http://scanse.io/ http://scanse.io/
- _joel 10y ago
  Don't forget another solid state scanner, available now with development kits - http://leddartech.com/modules/leddarvu/ http://leddartech.com/modules/leddarvu/
  - rsp1984 10y ago
    Yes, it's early days though. What's currently out there generally lacks speed/coverage and accuracy. The real breakthroughs will come with solid-state LiDAR but it's still a couple years out from mass-market availability. Lots of companies working on it though.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

Fair enough, if it helps here is what is odd. Let's say for the point of argument that Waymo does, in fact, have a LIDAR product that is every bit as good as what everyone else is selling but they can make it at 1/10th the price. For the sake of argument lets say the typical "net profit margin" on a LIDAR unit is 10% (the higher the margin the better this gets). Now if $x is the price of the typical LIDAR unit, and .1x is the profit. and Waymo can make an equivalent unit and sell it profitably at .1x then they could sell their units for .5x (1/2 the price of the current market) and make .4x$ in profit (roughly 4x what the other manufacturers are making). To me that would be a press release that made sense. It would say "We're going to own the LIDAR market with this product, and all the self driving cars from everyone are going to use them and when you multiply by the number of cars that is going to make use billions of dollars." That is a business announcing they have a huge advantage that they are going to use to make huge profits which will keep them in a leadership position for making the gear people use in deploying self driving cars. So for me it was odd that they announce what seems like a huge advantage but they aren't selling it to anyone except their one existing partner who opted not to participate in the press release. How did you interpret their press release?

petra 10y ago
One guess: the hardware costs for self driving is tiny relatively, and will go towards zero. But in the ideal case, owning the self-driving transportation network in most major cities, having a strong network effects(assuming shared rides+brand+other stuff) and selling rides, is worth hundreds of billions or more. And not sharing tech, especially possibly superior tech is a good strategic move.
nostrademons 10y ago
The LIDAR market is estimated at $1-3B by 2020. The automobile market is estimated at around $1T. Owning a $1B market is pocket change for Alphabet; it's not even worth their while. Being cost-competitive at owning a $1T market would make them the most valuable company on earth. The way I read the press release, it's a way of saying "Self-driving cars are here, they are reliable, and they're not just a rich person's toy. Every car sold on the roads will soon be self-driving, it's the biggest innovation in automobiles since the Model T, and you better have a piece of it or you will be left behind." Then they get all the major auto makers on board, and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, one where they have a monopoly position on the most crucial component (which is actually the software, not the LIDAR). Google is very well acquainted with spending billions of dollars on "free" products as a way of deepening their economic moat on the component they make money on. This is just an extension of this strategy to a market that's at least double the size of the total advertising market they've traditionally gone after.