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They actually built cars without steering wheels previously, but then decided they shouldn't be in the car manufacturing businesses. Now they are just repurposi

They actually built cars without steering wheels previously, but then decided they shouldn't be in the car manufacturing businesses. Now they are just repurposing the Pacifica mini-vans.

masklinn 9y ago
Yeah I know, I just find it weirds. I guess they'd still have had to go through the DOT if they removed the mechanical driving bits from an existing car and didn't find it worth doing.
Fricken 9y ago
Waymo never had any intention of manufacturing their own vehicles. They've been failing at finding a secure manufacturing partner for about 4 or 5 years now. Sebastien Thrun and Sergey Brin went into a number of auto executive board rooms basically suggesting that the auto industry should be ecstatic to become like foxconn, a brandless low-margin manufacturer of hardware to support Google products and services. The response from auto execs was basically "Fuck that noise", and the carmakers are responding aggressively to the shots that have been fired across their bow. Longer term this is a problem for Waymo. Their supposed partnership with Fiat Chrysler isn't a full-blown, intergrated manufacturing partnership. Waymo is mostly just buying Pacifica mini-vans from FCA and retrofitting them with Waymo's own custom designed hardware at a separate facility in Nova Michigan. This is not cost effective, and not viable as a long-term strategy. If Waymo does have a strategy for producing robotaxis in the tens of thousands, they've been very quiet about it. With every year that goes by building an autonomous OS gets easier. Best practices have been established, knowledge continually disseminates throughout the industry, there is, every year less software and hardware that needs to be built from scratch. Automobile mass production, on the other hand, isn't getting any easier. It's as hard as it ever was. So really, over the long run, it's the legacy automakers who have the true competitive moat, and the real bargaining power.
- masklinn 9y ago
  > Sebastien Thrun and Sergey Brin went into a number of auto executive board rooms basically suggesting that the auto industry should be ecstatic to become like foxconn, a brandless low-margin manufacturer of hardware to support Google products and services. Did… the… what? They didn't actually try that did they? Did nobody tell them auto exec have been fucking over their supply chains for a century?
  - Animats 9y ago
    Yes, and there's a strange interview with the CEO of (Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles about their deal with Google/Waymo. He seems to have a sense of wonder about dealing with Google, because Google is bigger than FCA. He's not used to that. On the other side, Continental, the huge European auto parts maker, is quietly starting to make all the parts for self-driving cars. They bought Advanced Scientific Concepts, the good flash LIDAR company, and are preparing that technology from volume production. They make the sensors, actuators, ruggedized computers, dashboards, etc.[1] Delco is also active in automatic driving. Self-driving may just be an auto accessory. [1] https://www.continental-corporation.com/en/products-and-innovation/innovation/automated-driving https://www.continental-corporation.com/en/products-and-inno...
  - Fricken 9y ago
    They didn't say it in so many words, but that was basically the terms of the deal. In late 2015 former Hyundai America CEO Krafcik was crowned CEO of Waymo by Larry Page, who saw Krafik as a guy who knew how to talk turkey with car guys. Krafcik's first order of business was to hammer out a deal with Ford, and by that time Waymo had ceded on many of their initial terms, as they were starting to get nervous, because it does take a good 5-7 years to design a vehicle and tool up a production line, and time is of the essence. Apparently Ford wanted significant capital investments from Alphabet as part of the deal, and Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said 'no' to that, so the deal fell through and Ford's then CEO Mark Fields was (eventually) fired and replaced by Jim Hackett as a result. The other thing that happened around the same time was a talent exodus from Waymo. Ford hired ex-Google self driving car project program manager Brian Salesky to lead the formation of Argo.ai, Ford's own robotaxi subsidiary, and Argo seems to be coming along but it's too early to gauge how well they're really doing.
- helloworld 9y ago
  With a market cap of $800 billion -- and about $100 billion in cash -- Alphabet/Waymo could just buy Fiat Chrysler, whose market cap is $32 billion.
- notatoad 9y ago
  This is why the Lyft/magna announcement yesterday was interesting. Magna kind of already is the auto industry's version of Foxconn. If the car companies aren't leading the pack in terms of autonomous tech, and aren't willing to be the manufacturers for the companies that are leading, they're going to be shut out of this race. I can understand GM wanting nothing to do with waymo, they've actually got some promising autonomous tech. But FCA should be jumping at the chance to work with waymo, unless they've got some top secret autonomous research happening that's a lot further along than anybody could guess.

They actually built cars without steering wheels previously, but then decided they shouldn't be in the car manufacturing businesses. Now they are just repurposing the Pacifica mini-vans.

masklinn 9y ago

Yeah I know, I just find it weirds. I guess they'd still have had to go through the DOT if they removed the mechanical driving bits from an existing car and didn't find it worth doing.

Fricken 9y ago

Waymo never had any intention of manufacturing their own vehicles. They've been failing at finding a secure manufacturing partner for about 4 or 5 years now. Sebastien Thrun and Sergey Brin went into a number of auto executive board rooms basically suggesting that the auto industry should be ecstatic to become like foxconn, a brandless low-margin manufacturer of hardware to support Google products and services. The response from auto execs was basically "Fuck that noise", and the carmakers are responding aggressively to the shots that have been fired across their bow. Longer term this is a problem for Waymo. Their supposed partnership with Fiat Chrysler isn't a full-blown, intergrated manufacturing partnership. Waymo is mostly just buying Pacifica mini-vans from FCA and retrofitting them with Waymo's own custom designed hardware at a separate facility in Nova Michigan. This is not cost effective, and not viable as a long-term strategy. If Waymo does have a strategy for producing robotaxis in the tens of thousands, they've been very quiet about it. With every year that goes by building an autonomous OS gets easier. Best practices have been established, knowledge continually disseminates throughout the industry, there is, every year less software and hardware that needs to be built from scratch. Automobile mass production, on the other hand, isn't getting any easier. It's as hard as it ever was. So really, over the long run, it's the legacy automakers who have the true competitive moat, and the real bargaining power.

masklinn 9y ago
> Sebastien Thrun and Sergey Brin went into a number of auto executive board rooms basically suggesting that the auto industry should be ecstatic to become like foxconn, a brandless low-margin manufacturer of hardware to support Google products and services. Did… the… what? They didn't actually try that did they? Did nobody tell them auto exec have been fucking over their supply chains for a century?
- Animats 9y ago
  Yes, and there's a strange interview with the CEO of (Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles about their deal with Google/Waymo. He seems to have a sense of wonder about dealing with Google, because Google is bigger than FCA. He's not used to that. On the other side, Continental, the huge European auto parts maker, is quietly starting to make all the parts for self-driving cars. They bought Advanced Scientific Concepts, the good flash LIDAR company, and are preparing that technology from volume production. They make the sensors, actuators, ruggedized computers, dashboards, etc.[1] Delco is also active in automatic driving. Self-driving may just be an auto accessory. [1] https://www.continental-corporation.com/en/products-and-innovation/innovation/automated-driving https://www.continental-corporation.com/en/products-and-inno...
- Fricken 9y ago
  They didn't say it in so many words, but that was basically the terms of the deal. In late 2015 former Hyundai America CEO Krafcik was crowned CEO of Waymo by Larry Page, who saw Krafik as a guy who knew how to talk turkey with car guys. Krafcik's first order of business was to hammer out a deal with Ford, and by that time Waymo had ceded on many of their initial terms, as they were starting to get nervous, because it does take a good 5-7 years to design a vehicle and tool up a production line, and time is of the essence. Apparently Ford wanted significant capital investments from Alphabet as part of the deal, and Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said 'no' to that, so the deal fell through and Ford's then CEO Mark Fields was (eventually) fired and replaced by Jim Hackett as a result. The other thing that happened around the same time was a talent exodus from Waymo. Ford hired ex-Google self driving car project program manager Brian Salesky to lead the formation of Argo.ai, Ford's own robotaxi subsidiary, and Argo seems to be coming along but it's too early to gauge how well they're really doing.
helloworld 9y ago
With a market cap of $800 billion -- and about $100 billion in cash -- Alphabet/Waymo could just buy Fiat Chrysler, whose market cap is $32 billion.
notatoad 9y ago
This is why the Lyft/magna announcement yesterday was interesting. Magna kind of already is the auto industry's version of Foxconn. If the car companies aren't leading the pack in terms of autonomous tech, and aren't willing to be the manufacturers for the companies that are leading, they're going to be shut out of this race. I can understand GM wanting nothing to do with waymo, they've actually got some promising autonomous tech. But FCA should be jumping at the chance to work with waymo, unless they've got some top secret autonomous research happening that's a lot further along than anybody could guess.