6 ms·

Can someone explain why non car companies are buying self driving car tech? Do they think they will end up with some sort of kit they can just attach to existin

Can someone explain why non car companies are buying self driving car tech? Do they think they will end up with some sort of kit they can just attach to existing cars? Are they trying to pivot into being car manufacturing companies? Or is this just a play to develop the AI then sell that to someone else?

topkai22 6y ago
As much as a technology or retailer company, Amazon is a logisitics company and they are buying a logistics technology that may drive down their delivery costs in an extreme way.
ttmb 6y ago
Amazon can use this technology entirely in-house.
naveen99 6y ago
You mean like open pilot ? https://comma.ai/ https://comma.ai/
fermienrico 6y ago
My take about Amazon interested in this is that in a giant list of AWS offerings, there will be a sensor suite processor service called SDS (Self Driving Suite) which will be installed physically inside the car as a server box. Amazon AWS has some experience in building hardware, AWS Snowball for e.g. Ofcourse it will communicate over 5G for non-immediate processing and will run through 3 intermediate AWS services before running the actual processing job on EC2 instance. One of them being SFS or Sensor Fusion Service, which combines geospatial data (from AGS + IPS) with up-to-date road data from other SDS equipped vehicles(1). The billing will be a bit complex so it will require ABS to optimize the billing based on location, mileage and other AI-driven metrics. (1) Inbound bandwidth will be free.
- trhway 6y ago
  All that will look for user as just simple "Alexa! Take me to ..."
  - season2episode3 6y ago
    Yikes. Given how atrocious Alexa is at doing anything more complicated than telling the current time, this won't end well.
EpicEng 6y ago
>Are they trying to pivot into being car manufacturing companies? Is Amazon, a company worth 1.4T dollars, trying to "pivot" into a car manufacturer? Seems unlikely, no? Amazon has a massive logistics and delivery operation. I imagine any automation there will yield great returns.
- jfim 6y ago
  They've already acquired Kiva (moving robot shelves) and Canvas (robot navigation) for the warehouse logistics. If you see the self driving cars as an extension of the logistics (delivery) then it does make sense.
kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
There are plenty of non-car companies that make components for the industry.
ponker 6y ago
The value at stake is immense — one of the most economically impactful inventions since the Internet — so companies with tons of money are trying to get a piece of the action.
necubi 6y ago
Amazon is now a major shipping and delivery company, in addition to everything else (as of last year, they were apparently delivering half of their packages themselves [0]). My guess is they would like to automate that. [0] https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/19/21029932/amazon-logistics-delivery-network-fedex-ups-usps https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/19/21029932/amazon-logist...
- numpad0 6y ago
  Agreed, I’d think even if they couldn’t go driverless or automate fully, Level 4 system in Level 2 mode is great for standardizing behavior of trucks.
- mabbo 6y ago
  Delivery is a huge portion of Amazon's costs, and most of that cost is the last mile of the delivery. What are the biggest costs of last-mile delivery? Human labor costs and fuel. What's Amazon putting money into? Self-driving vehicles (less human labor time) and electric vans. Bias note: I work for Amazon, but not in that department.
samfisher83 6y ago
They started out as a book seller. Now they sell everything. They are a movie studio. They are a shipping company. I think Bezos has grand ambitions.
- chii 6y ago
  when you're successful in one sector, the logical progression is to leverage that success to move into a new sector. Microsoft has done it for the browser market. Amazon has done it (more than once i might add) with online selling platform, into SaaS platform, which they now leverage into other businesses. Monopoly laws that were used to prevent this (ostensibly unfair practise) has lost their teeth.
- barbecue_sauce 6y ago
  Can his ambitions be much grander than what he's already achieved?
ideals 6y ago
autonomous delivery vehicles
SheinhardtWigCo 6y ago
Imagine Amazon with a radically different UI: a physical store on wheels that automatically stocks itself with products you’re likely to buy and then drives itself to your house. You go inside and take what you want; then the vehicle returns to base and stocks itself for the next customer. I want that.
- mandeepj 6y ago
  Not scalable - A trip for each customer
  - notyourwork 6y ago
    Amazon Treasure Truck is a step in this direction, you order and the truck comes near you. I can see similar pop-up store variations on this. Consider a truck pulling into your neighborhood with clothing. Walk inside, try on what you like, take what you want and go home. Scalability is a resource problem when you don't require as much human management and overhead. Its simply a resource allocation problem.
    - amelius 6y ago
      So we'll have trucks blocking the street while people inside those trucks are trying on new clothes? Ugh.
      - notyourwork 6y ago
        The world has parking lots. There are also places designated for food trucks that could also serve this purpose.
  - robertlagrant 6y ago
    A bit like current Amazon deliveries, then.
chickenpotpie 6y ago
Probably because the hardest part of a self driving car is the self driving part and not the car part.
michaelbuckbee 6y ago
Amazon previously purchased Kiva for their warehouse robotics systems [1]. It's safe to assume that Amazon wants to extend that out to the delivery side as well. 1 - https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/ma-flashback-amazon-announces-775m-kiva-systems-acquisition https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/ma-flashback-amazon-anno...
coredog64 6y ago
Dark horse suggestion: Patent portfolio. It’s possible that self-driving implementations will be patent encumbered, so they’re actually buying leverage to keep the fees reasonable.
- specialist 6y ago
  Ya. Ditto acquihire.
pmorici 6y ago
In Amazon's case they are a major investor in Rivian, an electric truck company that they are reported to be buying 100,000 electric delivery vans from over the next decade. Ford another major Rivian investor has partnered with and invested in autonomy startup Argo AI Rivian has said that their vehicles will have level 3 autonomy but if you look at the sensors the vehicles will include they would probably could be level 5 capable with the right software. Perhaps both Amazon and Ford are planning on bringing their own software to run on Rivian's hardware to turn the stock Rivian into a level 5 vehicle? It seems like it could be a smart play since the autonomy software will probably be the highest margin part of the vehicle.
jillesvangurp 6y ago
Well Amazon has several business units that could probably do something productive with this. The obvious one is of course their delivery fleet, which at some point will start benefiting from autonomous driving. We're talking about a logistics operation that is large enough that they operate their own planes and airports. Then there's AWS, which is also used for machine learning and other purposes. I imagine this company has a lot of the right kinds of skills they'd want to tap to offer off the shelf solutions in that space. Even if they'd ditch the product that could be valid. But of course these solutions include bespoke self driving solutions for those car manufacturers needing to catch up in a hurry. They are going to spend billions doing so and that are going to be in need of exactly the kind of services and scale that AWS provides. IMHO most of them are going to not succeed with in house solutions and are going to be looking for something off the shelf. At least, I don't see the likes of Kia, BMW, Chrysler, etc. turning into the type of software companies that can actually do this half decently any time soon. So, that means AWS offering all or most of this as a service sounds like a good idea. Of course the theory and practice of acquihires are two things. Most of them flat out fail and are nothing more than a big corporation scratching the backs of investors (e.g. on their board) by bailing out their failed investments. A lot of exits in the startup space fall in this category. Investors hate having their investments go bankrupt. An acquihire you can still spin as a success. A bankruptcy is much harder.
ummonk 6y ago
The automotive industry has plenty of OEM suppliers for various vehicle components, so there would be nothing unusual about a third party company providing self-driving hardware and software for traditional manufacturers' cars.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>Can someone explain why non car companies are buying self driving car tech? Because warehouses and the freight terminal (truck terminal in the consumer goods case) that necessarily surrounds them have a need for things that can roll around autonomously while not colliding with things. There are existing solutions for this but they're far behind the state of the art for self driving vehicles that aim to eventually be used on public roads and they have several weak points that make them less competitive in very dynamic warehouses (variable contents and throughput, as opposed to a warehouse that feeds a manufacturing operation which will have more fixed contents and less variable output) that mostly handle lightweight goods (which is part of why amazon uses so much human labor in its warehouses). I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon was trying to scoop up Zoox on the cheap for their own internal use. They already bought a warehouse automation company. The probably have a list of things they want to automate and figure that buying a company that already has competence in the space (even if they're not a front runner) is the best way to meet their needs. Of course the delivery network serving the area surrounding the warehouse facility can also make use of self driving tech but self driving on public roads is a much harder and farther off problem and I don't think solving it is their primary goal for this purchase.

topkai22 6y ago

As much as a technology or retailer company, Amazon is a logisitics company and they are buying a logistics technology that may drive down their delivery costs in an extreme way.

ttmb 6y ago

Amazon can use this technology entirely in-house.

naveen99 6y ago

You mean like open pilot ? https://comma.ai/ https://comma.ai/

fermienrico 6y ago

My take about Amazon interested in this is that in a giant list of AWS offerings, there will be a sensor suite processor service called SDS (Self Driving Suite) which will be installed physically inside the car as a server box. Amazon AWS has some experience in building hardware, AWS Snowball for e.g. Ofcourse it will communicate over 5G for non-immediate processing and will run through 3 intermediate AWS services before running the actual processing job on EC2 instance. One of them being SFS or Sensor Fusion Service, which combines geospatial data (from AGS + IPS) with up-to-date road data from other SDS equipped vehicles(1). The billing will be a bit complex so it will require ABS to optimize the billing based on location, mileage and other AI-driven metrics. (1) Inbound bandwidth will be free.

trhway 6y ago
All that will look for user as just simple "Alexa! Take me to ..."
- season2episode3 6y ago
  Yikes. Given how atrocious Alexa is at doing anything more complicated than telling the current time, this won't end well.

EpicEng 6y ago

>Are they trying to pivot into being car manufacturing companies? Is Amazon, a company worth 1.4T dollars, trying to "pivot" into a car manufacturer? Seems unlikely, no? Amazon has a massive logistics and delivery operation. I imagine any automation there will yield great returns.

jfim 6y ago
They've already acquired Kiva (moving robot shelves) and Canvas (robot navigation) for the warehouse logistics. If you see the self driving cars as an extension of the logistics (delivery) then it does make sense.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago

There are plenty of non-car companies that make components for the industry.

ponker 6y ago

The value at stake is immense — one of the most economically impactful inventions since the Internet — so companies with tons of money are trying to get a piece of the action.

necubi 6y ago

Amazon is now a major shipping and delivery company, in addition to everything else (as of last year, they were apparently delivering half of their packages themselves [0]). My guess is they would like to automate that. [0] https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/19/21029932/amazon-logistics-delivery-network-fedex-ups-usps https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/19/21029932/amazon-logist...

numpad0 6y ago
Agreed, I’d think even if they couldn’t go driverless or automate fully, Level 4 system in Level 2 mode is great for standardizing behavior of trucks.
mabbo 6y ago
Delivery is a huge portion of Amazon's costs, and most of that cost is the last mile of the delivery. What are the biggest costs of last-mile delivery? Human labor costs and fuel. What's Amazon putting money into? Self-driving vehicles (less human labor time) and electric vans. Bias note: I work for Amazon, but not in that department.

samfisher83 6y ago

They started out as a book seller. Now they sell everything. They are a movie studio. They are a shipping company. I think Bezos has grand ambitions.

chii 6y ago
when you're successful in one sector, the logical progression is to leverage that success to move into a new sector. Microsoft has done it for the browser market. Amazon has done it (more than once i might add) with online selling platform, into SaaS platform, which they now leverage into other businesses. Monopoly laws that were used to prevent this (ostensibly unfair practise) has lost their teeth.
barbecue_sauce 6y ago
Can his ambitions be much grander than what he's already achieved?

ideals 6y ago

autonomous delivery vehicles

SheinhardtWigCo 6y ago

Imagine Amazon with a radically different UI: a physical store on wheels that automatically stocks itself with products you’re likely to buy and then drives itself to your house. You go inside and take what you want; then the vehicle returns to base and stocks itself for the next customer. I want that.

mandeepj 6y ago
Not scalable - A trip for each customer
- notyourwork 6y ago
  Amazon Treasure Truck is a step in this direction, you order and the truck comes near you. I can see similar pop-up store variations on this. Consider a truck pulling into your neighborhood with clothing. Walk inside, try on what you like, take what you want and go home. Scalability is a resource problem when you don't require as much human management and overhead. Its simply a resource allocation problem.
  - amelius 6y ago
    So we'll have trucks blocking the street while people inside those trucks are trying on new clothes? Ugh.
    - notyourwork 6y ago
      The world has parking lots. There are also places designated for food trucks that could also serve this purpose.
- robertlagrant 6y ago
  A bit like current Amazon deliveries, then.

chickenpotpie 6y ago

Probably because the hardest part of a self driving car is the self driving part and not the car part.

michaelbuckbee 6y ago

Amazon previously purchased Kiva for their warehouse robotics systems [1]. It's safe to assume that Amazon wants to extend that out to the delivery side as well. 1 - https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/ma-flashback-amazon-announces-775m-kiva-systems-acquisition https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/ma-flashback-amazon-anno...

coredog64 6y ago

Dark horse suggestion: Patent portfolio. It’s possible that self-driving implementations will be patent encumbered, so they’re actually buying leverage to keep the fees reasonable.

specialist 6y ago
Ya. Ditto acquihire.

pmorici 6y ago

In Amazon's case they are a major investor in Rivian, an electric truck company that they are reported to be buying 100,000 electric delivery vans from over the next decade. Ford another major Rivian investor has partnered with and invested in autonomy startup Argo AI Rivian has said that their vehicles will have level 3 autonomy but if you look at the sensors the vehicles will include they would probably could be level 5 capable with the right software. Perhaps both Amazon and Ford are planning on bringing their own software to run on Rivian's hardware to turn the stock Rivian into a level 5 vehicle? It seems like it could be a smart play since the autonomy software will probably be the highest margin part of the vehicle.

jillesvangurp 6y ago

Well Amazon has several business units that could probably do something productive with this. The obvious one is of course their delivery fleet, which at some point will start benefiting from autonomous driving. We're talking about a logistics operation that is large enough that they operate their own planes and airports. Then there's AWS, which is also used for machine learning and other purposes. I imagine this company has a lot of the right kinds of skills they'd want to tap to offer off the shelf solutions in that space. Even if they'd ditch the product that could be valid. But of course these solutions include bespoke self driving solutions for those car manufacturers needing to catch up in a hurry. They are going to spend billions doing so and that are going to be in need of exactly the kind of services and scale that AWS provides. IMHO most of them are going to not succeed with in house solutions and are going to be looking for something off the shelf. At least, I don't see the likes of Kia, BMW, Chrysler, etc. turning into the type of software companies that can actually do this half decently any time soon. So, that means AWS offering all or most of this as a service sounds like a good idea. Of course the theory and practice of acquihires are two things. Most of them flat out fail and are nothing more than a big corporation scratching the backs of investors (e.g. on their board) by bailing out their failed investments. A lot of exits in the startup space fall in this category. Investors hate having their investments go bankrupt. An acquihire you can still spin as a success. A bankruptcy is much harder.

ummonk 6y ago

The automotive industry has plenty of OEM suppliers for various vehicle components, so there would be nothing unusual about a third party company providing self-driving hardware and software for traditional manufacturers' cars.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>Can someone explain why non car companies are buying self driving car tech? Because warehouses and the freight terminal (truck terminal in the consumer goods case) that necessarily surrounds them have a need for things that can roll around autonomously while not colliding with things. There are existing solutions for this but they're far behind the state of the art for self driving vehicles that aim to eventually be used on public roads and they have several weak points that make them less competitive in very dynamic warehouses (variable contents and throughput, as opposed to a warehouse that feeds a manufacturing operation which will have more fixed contents and less variable output) that mostly handle lightweight goods (which is part of why amazon uses so much human labor in its warehouses). I wouldn't be surprised if Amazon was trying to scoop up Zoox on the cheap for their own internal use. They already bought a warehouse automation company. The probably have a list of things they want to automate and figure that buying a company that already has competence in the space (even if they're not a front runner) is the best way to meet their needs. Of course the delivery network serving the area surrounding the warehouse facility can also make use of self driving tech but self driving on public roads is a much harder and farther off problem and I don't think solving it is their primary goal for this purchase.