4 ms·
We've already seen price drops for the most expensive self-driving components. LIDARs, GPUs and storage have already fallen in cost, and the products aren't eve
by stdgy 9y ago
We've already seen price drops for the most expensive self-driving components. LIDARs, GPUs and storage have already fallen in cost, and the products aren't even on the market yet. There is every reason to believe these price drops will continue as more resources are put into scaling production and more companies enter the game of component design and production.
- monkmartinez 9y ago> There is every reason to believe these price drops will continue as more resources are put into scaling production and more companies enter the game of component design and production. Why? We literally never see that with top shelf products. This isn't an arduino solder job. This is going to be an integrated software and hardware package that will rival an aircraft autopilot/navigation. Please check you facts on the cost of these things. I don't want walmart brand, everday low price components on my self-driving vehicle. I want top of the line if my life is in the balance.
- joshuamorton 9y ago>Why? We literally never see that with top shelf products. This isn't an arduino solder job. This is going to be an integrated software and hardware package that will rival an aircraft autopilot/navigation. Please check you facts on the cost of these things. Google claims that it dropped the price of lidar by a factor of 10x once it started producing them. That seems like a significant, factual, drop in cost.
- monkmartinez 9y agoThe iPhone is how much to produce? Very important point you missed in what I wrote; Hardware and software package. A lidar without software is useless.
- joshuamorton 9y agoThe price dropped from something ridiculous (~100K) to something manageable for a luxury car (~10K), and certainly reasonable as a cost offset by multiple consumers (like in a rideshare environment).
- monkmartinez 9y agoIt doesn't matter. As we have learned with the John Deere tractor situation is that we will lose even more control. Think buying and maintaining a car is expensive now? Wait until you literally can't drive it without paying for a software update. I'm sorry, but I don't see anything cool in this other than a quick nap sometimes on a long road trip. Everything else quickly approaches pain in the ass levels to the point where I would rather have carburetors back. Also, don't want to rideshare with a group of disgusting people. I work in EMS and I see first hand what nastiness is out there. Nope.
- joshuamorton 9y agoSo your argument went from "its economically infeasible" to "I don't like it!"?
- monkmartinez 9y agoNo... in addition to being prohibitively expensive, the other model being put forth to make it less expensive, ride-sharing, also has drawbacks which make the idea a non-starter for most Americans. If ridesharing was awesome, we would see it now with luxury cars. We don't because it is stupid and will not reduce the price of the car dramatically enough to outweigh the negatives.
- stdgy 9y agoHow much does your 'top of the line' lane-staying sensor cost? How about your backup camera? How about automatic breaking sensors? How about all of the components required to integrate these sensors into your vehicle? These are all things that started high and fell low. The historical prices for each of these systems reflects this fact, as does their gradual movement through the available product line-up. They all started in top of the line vehicles that cost well north of the average person's yearly salary, and are steadily creeping into the lowliest models. I see nothing in self-driving systems that make them special in this regard. They're already largely an amalgamation of commodity components whose prices are trending downwards. You can bet on them staying a niche product forever, if you wish. I just think it flies in the face of historical evidence.