4 ms·

The point of the competition wouldn't be a cash prize to encourage innovation. The point of the competition would be a public display of competing technologies

The point of the competition wouldn't be a cash prize to encourage innovation. The point of the competition would be a public display of competing technologies so the winner gets bragging rights which it can likely turn into sales. You could feasibly make money from televising the event, but it would be trivial compared to being the automaker with the best self-driving technology. Companies like McLaren and Ferrari made their brands by winning races and they make most of their money selling sports cars. Now imagine you're appealing to a demographic 100x larger and everybody wants self-driving technology, but they don't understand it well enough to know what to buy. There is a natural tendency for people to want "the best" and for people to associate prestige with trophies. If the event were properly marketed, I'd say the winner would make an enormous amount of money in sales. And it would definitely do wonders for brand loyalty. That's why companies would be excited to participate. The public gets the advantage of a (hopefully) impartial competition to see how the technologies perform.

Fricken 10y ago
I'm not super concerned at this point about which automaker has the best self driving technology, because we don't yet have an automaker with good enough self driving technology, it's all still a work in progress. The first implementations of fully autonomous vehicles won't be sold to private consumers, they'll be fleet vehicles serving robotaxi networks, they'll be geofenced, and they'll require a fair bit of troubleshooting and maintenance. Should we have a competition to see who offers the best robotaxi service? We will, and it will play out in the real world.
- unityByFreedom 10y ago
  > I'm not super concerned at this point about which automaker has the best self driving technology Investors would be interested. They're always trying to figure out which company has an advantage over competition. They want to know before it plays out in the real world, if possible.
  - Judgmentality 10y ago
    Another thought - insurance companies could organize it. And they have enough leverage that large automakers would have reason to compete.
    - unityByFreedom 10y ago
      That would be interesting. They certainly have more incentive than other bodies. It's been a long time since people have thought of insurance as cool.

Fricken 10y ago

I'm not super concerned at this point about which automaker has the best self driving technology, because we don't yet have an automaker with good enough self driving technology, it's all still a work in progress. The first implementations of fully autonomous vehicles won't be sold to private consumers, they'll be fleet vehicles serving robotaxi networks, they'll be geofenced, and they'll require a fair bit of troubleshooting and maintenance. Should we have a competition to see who offers the best robotaxi service? We will, and it will play out in the real world.

unityByFreedom 10y ago
> I'm not super concerned at this point about which automaker has the best self driving technology Investors would be interested. They're always trying to figure out which company has an advantage over competition. They want to know before it plays out in the real world, if possible.
- Judgmentality 10y ago
  Another thought - insurance companies could organize it. And they have enough leverage that large automakers would have reason to compete.
  - unityByFreedom 10y ago
    That would be interesting. They certainly have more incentive than other bodies. It's been a long time since people have thought of insurance as cool.