4 ms·
I wouldn't discount Tesla: 1. They already have cars on the road, albeit Model 3 has production delays. 2. The people who buy Tesla cars are the same ones who
by QML 9y ago
I wouldn't discount Tesla:
1. They already have cars on the road, albeit Model 3 has production delays.
2. The people who buy Tesla cars are the same ones who are willing to adopt self-driving technology faster.
Waymo has no brand recognition outside the tech community; GM is old-fashioned, and tailors to alike customers; Volvo and Toyota -- same issue as GM.
- deepnotderp 9y agoTesla's SDC program is badly broken. Trust me, or trust the string of engineering departures.
- Fricken 9y ago1. I wouldn't count Tesla until they make big changes to their hardware and general strategy. They've got an Elon-knows-better-than-the-experts-who-work-for-him problem. 2. Fully autonomous cars will be Robotaxis for the forseeable future. They're not for sale. I'm actually baffled as to how many people there are that don't get this, it's been in the news daily for years. They're far from being idiot-proof enough to put in the hands of private owners, they need careful maintenance and oversight, and cost north of $150k apiece. GM is moving aggressively, and with confidence. GM acquired Cruise Automation, and they've been developing their Autonomous OS since 2013, it was money well spent. They're the most vertically integrated company making real progress on the self driving problem, and only Waymo is ahead of them. The problem with Waymo is they can't make cars and don't have a legit partnership with anyone who does.
- esturk 9y agoActually, that's counter intuitive to one Tesla recruiter that I once spoke with. He said that Tesla does not want to take away the driving experience from users which is why having autopilot was good enough for them right now. This makes sense because without the human driving experience, there's really no differentiation from one self-driving car to another. You are binning all Tesla owners into just a single category of futurists. In fact there's another group that's in it for the luxury brand and prestige.
- Fricken 9y agoMusk is really into the idea of everybody having their own cars. So he came up with The Tesla Network so if you want your Tesla making money for you, you can put your car on it. He came out with a fabulous idea for a steel vacuum tube that moves shit 700 miles an hour, so you can put your car in it. He's sick of all the cars clogging up his commute from LA to Fremont, so he decided to buy a boring machine with the goal of a 10x cost reduction in tunnel digging. So we can build awesome subways? No. So you can put your car in it. SpaceX wants to deliver a preliminary payload to mars orbit and try out the Falcon Heavy. Maybe deploy something useful like a satellite or a rover? To heck with that, let's put a car in orbit!
- esturk 9y agoI don't believe Musk commutes from LA to Fremont. Its actually from his home in Bel Air to the SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne. I see merit in the Tesla Network because everyone recognizes the potential in an Autonomous Vehicle network. However this will limit the first ideal to have everyone owning their own car. And at the end of the day, once cars become autonomous, it becomes a commodity. People don't really car which brand of the AV gets them to their destination so long as its on time.
- ericd 9y ago>People don't really car which brand of the AV gets them to their destination so long as its on time. Shouldn't that also imply that people wouldn't care which brand of car gets them to their destination now? That is definitely not the case, for many people.
- dragonwriter 9y agoPeople care about brand when they are owning, driving, and maintaining them. Probably less so when other people are.
- ericd 9y ago