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I believe that Waymo are killing it, but... their desire to not be a car company and just write the software makes me wonder what their plan is to become a seri

I believe that Waymo are killing it, but... their desire to not be a car company and just write the software makes me wonder what their plan is to become a serious driver of Alphabet profit. Unless they have made some real breakthroughs and are managing to somehow keep them under wraps (seems unlikely), optimistically they have a 5 year lead on their competitors. 5 years is a good amount of time to be the only people with self-driving tech, but unless they actually use it to muscle in on some other industry it seems like they will be reduced to just another component supplier when enough competitors eventually catch up.

ehsankia 9y ago
They seem to have gotten a lot more serious since forming Waymo. In just a few months, they started the actual public trial in Phoenix as well as make this deal with Lyft. Seems like they've finally understood the urgency and have stepped on the pedal. I don't understand your claim that they have to be a car company though. With this deal, it seems like they are (at least for now) targeting ride sharing, and arguably that's a much better use of the technology for many reasons. For example, you don't have to worry about parking, you can put limits on where the car drives, you own the cars so you can track them, collect data and transfer it as you wish. Also, wasn't Uber valued higher than Tesla, at least a few months back? So arguably as a business, it's as good if not better than being a car company, at least for now until the tech gets even better.
- Eridrus 9y ago
  I don't think Waymo necessarily needs to build cars, they could try to be Uber, they could try to be FedEx, they could try to be Seamless. I don't really have a good opinion on what they should be, just that I don't think they will make enough money as a supplier to justify all the risk they've taken. Maybe they can make some deals where they give a company exclusive access to self-driving tech for a given industry for a significant equity stake in that company, but I feel like no-one would really want to take that deal.
- kyrra 9y ago
  It does seem Waymo is going the path of the component supplier (at least right now). While they have the active partnership with Fiat Chrysler, there was a report[0] in December that they were in talks with Honda as well. Then from reddit pointed out a job posted for Waymo looking for people that speak Japanese[1]. [0] https://www.recode.net/2016/12/21/14046496/waymo-alphabet-honda-partnership https://www.recode.net/2016/12/21/14046496/waymo-alphabet-ho... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/67w27p/fiat_chryslers_ceo_is_betting_googles_selfdriving/dgu0dzf/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/67w27p/fia...
IanCal 9y ago
Partnering with others sounds like a much faster route to getting into the hands of consumers (and therefore getting money). Having to also create and scale up production of a car as well sounds harder and much riskier.

ehsankia 9y ago

They seem to have gotten a lot more serious since forming Waymo. In just a few months, they started the actual public trial in Phoenix as well as make this deal with Lyft. Seems like they've finally understood the urgency and have stepped on the pedal. I don't understand your claim that they have to be a car company though. With this deal, it seems like they are (at least for now) targeting ride sharing, and arguably that's a much better use of the technology for many reasons. For example, you don't have to worry about parking, you can put limits on where the car drives, you own the cars so you can track them, collect data and transfer it as you wish. Also, wasn't Uber valued higher than Tesla, at least a few months back? So arguably as a business, it's as good if not better than being a car company, at least for now until the tech gets even better.

Eridrus 9y ago
I don't think Waymo necessarily needs to build cars, they could try to be Uber, they could try to be FedEx, they could try to be Seamless. I don't really have a good opinion on what they should be, just that I don't think they will make enough money as a supplier to justify all the risk they've taken. Maybe they can make some deals where they give a company exclusive access to self-driving tech for a given industry for a significant equity stake in that company, but I feel like no-one would really want to take that deal.
kyrra 9y ago
It does seem Waymo is going the path of the component supplier (at least right now). While they have the active partnership with Fiat Chrysler, there was a report[0] in December that they were in talks with Honda as well. Then from reddit pointed out a job posted for Waymo looking for people that speak Japanese[1]. [0] https://www.recode.net/2016/12/21/14046496/waymo-alphabet-honda-partnership https://www.recode.net/2016/12/21/14046496/waymo-alphabet-ho... [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/67w27p/fiat_chryslers_ceo_is_betting_googles_selfdriving/dgu0dzf/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/67w27p/fia...

IanCal 9y ago

Partnering with others sounds like a much faster route to getting into the hands of consumers (and therefore getting money). Having to also create and scale up production of a car as well sounds harder and much riskier.