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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

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...

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...