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This was an inside deal. Looking at the partners page for Fontinalis (VC firm), you've got Bill Ford Jr. and Jr. Jr. All of their other investments are unremar

This was an inside deal. Looking at the partners page for Fontinalis (VC firm), you've got Bill Ford Jr. and Jr. Jr. All of their other investments are unremarkable. I work for one of the big three - this autonomous stuff is way, way further out that what anyone is saying. I can't put a year on it because markets can stay irrational longer than you can stay liquid but it's all a head fake/game by upper management, who have finally found the Silicon Valley playbook of making wild ass promises now they that they've largely shed their pension obligations (my Dad, a slightly below classified level engineer at GM, will be taking the cash buyout instead of pension. Who can trust GM at this point? They've gone bankrupt before). Big Three company with that's poised to actually make real profits? FCA. New Wrangler/Grand Cherokee/Ram/Wagoneer/Grand Wagoneer in the next 24 months. Today, those vehicles make the lion share of profits and its not even close. And all of those vehicle redesigns will have mild hybrids for their launch, as a hedge against oil going up. FCA improving quality by going upmarket/simply charging more. Dealer model isn't ideal, but that will change over time.

deleted 9y ago
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jfoster 9y ago
What do you make of Waymo's Early Rider programme? https://waymo.com/apply/ https://waymo.com/apply/
- karpodiem 9y ago
  I'd like to see a Waymo Pacifica going north on I-75 the morning after we get 6-8 inches of snow. To which someone on HN will respond - 'well it's dangerous to be driving during that time anyway.' Well, yes - but people still need to get to places (hospitals). And I've yet to see regulation under what situations autonomous vehicles can and cannot operate. And the fact that hasn't been addressed yet in any legal manner/you're not seeing cars available with it on a lot other than Tesla (who is playing with fire without LIDAR) tells you where this is at. Not saying it shouldn't be worked on/this isn't coming, but we've got a ways to go with this yet. @markbspiegel and some of the other Tesla bears (read: those with large short positions) have documented the NHTSA cases that have been filed against Tesla.
  - praneshp 9y ago
    I get that you are contributing a lot in this thread, and my position on how soon self driving cars will be widespread is negative. That said "I'd like to see a Waymo Pacifica going north on I-75 the morning after we get 6-8 inches of snow." is a (edited:) poor argument. There are plenty of non-snowing cities to test the crap out of self-driving cars first. (And clearly, that's what the Waymo early-rider program is trying)
    - JangoSteve 9y ago
      Yeah, but when you sell them to the public, you can't stop people from driving into other states or areas where conditions are less favorable; which I think is relevant and applicable to their original argument that actually having self-driving cars out in the market is further out than what the industry is saying. But yeah, in relation to the Early Rider program, that's probably one of the reasons you must apply. They were asked what they thought of the program, and my interpretation of their response (not putting words in their mouth, but as I understood it) would be along the lines of, "Must be a controlled trial, since their technology is likely far from being able to handle anything outside of favorable environments."
      - vthallam 9y ago
        At least for Waymo, the biggest use case is to test the rideshare program with driverless cars with Waze aka a driverless Uber. They can apparently operate in specific cities first, start to monetize and figure out extreme weather conditions and edge cases.
        praneshp 9y ago
        This was the point I was making. The first gen can just be rideshare (vs buy the car).
        sagarm 9y ago
        IMO self driving car ownership won't be cost competitive with ride-sharing/tncs. Why would a car that can drive itself be idle 95% of the time?
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
I agree with you that it's further out than we'd like to think but since you're an insider - do you see shorting Delphi as a decent investment play?
- karpodiem 9y ago
  I don't understand this market at all. I'm in cash/Ethereum. I've suspended my 401K contribution and buy a small bit of ETH every paycheck. For example, Caterpillar - (Revenue/EPS) Q3 2012: $16.4B/$2.54 Q3 2017: $11.4B/$1.77 Stock price: 2012: $85 2017: $139
  - rokhayakebe 9y ago
    I've suspended my 401K contribution and buy a small bit of ETH every paycheck. What is the rational here? Interested in ETH, however I haven't seen it move past $400 in months.
    - jdhawk 9y ago
      Just because its not tracking with BTC at the moment does not mean its never going to increase in value.
    - karpodiem 9y ago
      You mean $300? ETH seems to lack the drama of BTC and Byzantium is humming along. I see the ETH dev team being active/creating off-chain solutions (whether the market will adopt these solutions is a valid question to ask) - I think these solutions offer value that isn't fully priced in.
      - corford 9y ago
        I like ETH (especially the lack of fork drama every few months) but the only thing that's stopping me regularly buying more is a fear for what will happen to the price if the ICO market starts receiving sustained negative attention from regulators. Blog posts like this one suggest a (probably necessary imho) storm is coming: https://blog.colony.io/the-colony-token-sale-7ac14c845bc0 https://blog.colony.io/the-colony-token-sale-7ac14c845bc0 I know ETH isn't just about ICOs but I remain skeptical how big of a market there is, outside of the ICO world, for Dapps and smart contracts. That's before considering potential competition from projects like NEO, ARK and LISK; which could further splinter demand.
zormino 9y ago
Those cars don't make up the lions share of the profits, they make up the profits. Jeep is worth more than FCA because the other brands, with the exception of Maserati, are losing money. You're right about the driverless thing being farther out than these big companies seem to be leading people to believe. It's somewhat straightforward to get driverless working in 90% of cases, but the remaining parts are basically unsolved as far as I'm aware. I think automated highway driving is the best we're going to see for at least a few years.
- karpodiem 9y ago
  'Jeep is worth more than FCA because the other brands, with the exception of Maserati, are losing money.' The L-cars are profitable (Charger, Challenger, 300). Not as profitable as Jeep, but they make money.
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edshiro 9y ago
Thanks for your insights. I also believe that we are much further on the L4/L5 front than what most automakers proclaim. I was quite "disappointed" with the $400M acquisition price tag when companies like Cruise sold for $1B to GM and MobilEye were acquired by Intel for $15B. Do you know how far are Nutonomy to the likes of Waymo/Cruise or even Tesla/comma.ai from a tech point of view? There is so much opacity in this market that it is very hard to determine where each player stands. Also seems to me that the way to play it smart if you are a startup in automotive space is to build ever more advanced ADAS features and sell them to carmakers or if you are building driverless vehicles deploy them in very safe and sunny environments. Would really appreciate getting your thoughts on this as I am in interested in this sector.
- wmeredith 9y ago
  ADAS?
  - edshiro 9y ago
    Advanced Driver Assistance Systems - basically things like Lane Departure, etc. Sorry should have clarified this point; more info on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_driver-assistance_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_driver-assistance_sys...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jfoster 9y ago

What do you make of Waymo's Early Rider programme? https://waymo.com/apply/ https://waymo.com/apply/

karpodiem 9y ago
I'd like to see a Waymo Pacifica going north on I-75 the morning after we get 6-8 inches of snow. To which someone on HN will respond - 'well it's dangerous to be driving during that time anyway.' Well, yes - but people still need to get to places (hospitals). And I've yet to see regulation under what situations autonomous vehicles can and cannot operate. And the fact that hasn't been addressed yet in any legal manner/you're not seeing cars available with it on a lot other than Tesla (who is playing with fire without LIDAR) tells you where this is at. Not saying it shouldn't be worked on/this isn't coming, but we've got a ways to go with this yet. @markbspiegel and some of the other Tesla bears (read: those with large short positions) have documented the NHTSA cases that have been filed against Tesla.
- praneshp 9y ago
  I get that you are contributing a lot in this thread, and my position on how soon self driving cars will be widespread is negative. That said "I'd like to see a Waymo Pacifica going north on I-75 the morning after we get 6-8 inches of snow." is a (edited:) poor argument. There are plenty of non-snowing cities to test the crap out of self-driving cars first. (And clearly, that's what the Waymo early-rider program is trying)
  - JangoSteve 9y ago
    Yeah, but when you sell them to the public, you can't stop people from driving into other states or areas where conditions are less favorable; which I think is relevant and applicable to their original argument that actually having self-driving cars out in the market is further out than what the industry is saying. But yeah, in relation to the Early Rider program, that's probably one of the reasons you must apply. They were asked what they thought of the program, and my interpretation of their response (not putting words in their mouth, but as I understood it) would be along the lines of, "Must be a controlled trial, since their technology is likely far from being able to handle anything outside of favorable environments."
    - vthallam 9y ago
      At least for Waymo, the biggest use case is to test the rideshare program with driverless cars with Waze aka a driverless Uber. They can apparently operate in specific cities first, start to monetize and figure out extreme weather conditions and edge cases.
      - praneshp 9y ago
        This was the point I was making. The first gen can just be rideshare (vs buy the car).
        sagarm 9y ago
        IMO self driving car ownership won't be cost competitive with ride-sharing/tncs. Why would a car that can drive itself be idle 95% of the time?

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

I agree with you that it's further out than we'd like to think but since you're an insider - do you see shorting Delphi as a decent investment play?

karpodiem 9y ago
I don't understand this market at all. I'm in cash/Ethereum. I've suspended my 401K contribution and buy a small bit of ETH every paycheck. For example, Caterpillar - (Revenue/EPS) Q3 2012: $16.4B/$2.54 Q3 2017: $11.4B/$1.77 Stock price: 2012: $85 2017: $139
- rokhayakebe 9y ago
  I've suspended my 401K contribution and buy a small bit of ETH every paycheck. What is the rational here? Interested in ETH, however I haven't seen it move past $400 in months.
  - jdhawk 9y ago
    Just because its not tracking with BTC at the moment does not mean its never going to increase in value.
  - karpodiem 9y ago
    You mean $300? ETH seems to lack the drama of BTC and Byzantium is humming along. I see the ETH dev team being active/creating off-chain solutions (whether the market will adopt these solutions is a valid question to ask) - I think these solutions offer value that isn't fully priced in.
    - corford 9y ago
      I like ETH (especially the lack of fork drama every few months) but the only thing that's stopping me regularly buying more is a fear for what will happen to the price if the ICO market starts receiving sustained negative attention from regulators. Blog posts like this one suggest a (probably necessary imho) storm is coming: https://blog.colony.io/the-colony-token-sale-7ac14c845bc0 https://blog.colony.io/the-colony-token-sale-7ac14c845bc0 I know ETH isn't just about ICOs but I remain skeptical how big of a market there is, outside of the ICO world, for Dapps and smart contracts. That's before considering potential competition from projects like NEO, ARK and LISK; which could further splinter demand.

zormino 9y ago

Those cars don't make up the lions share of the profits, they make up the profits. Jeep is worth more than FCA because the other brands, with the exception of Maserati, are losing money. You're right about the driverless thing being farther out than these big companies seem to be leading people to believe. It's somewhat straightforward to get driverless working in 90% of cases, but the remaining parts are basically unsolved as far as I'm aware. I think automated highway driving is the best we're going to see for at least a few years.

karpodiem 9y ago
'Jeep is worth more than FCA because the other brands, with the exception of Maserati, are losing money.' The L-cars are profitable (Charger, Challenger, 300). Not as profitable as Jeep, but they make money.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

edshiro 9y ago

Thanks for your insights. I also believe that we are much further on the L4/L5 front than what most automakers proclaim. I was quite "disappointed" with the $400M acquisition price tag when companies like Cruise sold for $1B to GM and MobilEye were acquired by Intel for $15B. Do you know how far are Nutonomy to the likes of Waymo/Cruise or even Tesla/comma.ai from a tech point of view? There is so much opacity in this market that it is very hard to determine where each player stands. Also seems to me that the way to play it smart if you are a startup in automotive space is to build ever more advanced ADAS features and sell them to carmakers or if you are building driverless vehicles deploy them in very safe and sunny environments. Would really appreciate getting your thoughts on this as I am in interested in this sector.

wmeredith 9y ago
ADAS?
- edshiro 9y ago
  Advanced Driver Assistance Systems - basically things like Lane Departure, etc. Sorry should have clarified this point; more info on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_driver-assistance_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_driver-assistance_sys...