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> Probably Waymo Waymo has spend 10+ years and they can now barley driven in possibly the easiest location in the world, a location where they have logged mill

by nickik 6y ago

> Probably Waymo Waymo has spend 10+ years and they can now barley driven in possibly the easiest location in the world, a location where they have logged millions of miles. Waymo focuses on the easiest thing first. The technology on their car is incredibly expensive both now and to scale it to 10k, 100k, 1M vehicles is a huge challenge, both capital and manufacturing. They are like a rocket company who says, we have this amazing air-frame, launch pad, software we only need to figure out the engine, then we are gone make money. I place my bets on the company that has million of cars on the road, seeing every corner case possible in every location, because that is the real challenge to overcome if you actually want to have many 1000s of cars in every city. Plus the sensor suit and compute power in a Tesla maybe cost a few 1000$, scalable to 10s of millions of vehicles. I don't think either of them is really close to self driving, but at least Tesla is focusing on the right problem with a scalable solution. > What’s stopping Waymo from patenting this after they get to an acceptable threshold and selling it to their competitors? If their technology actually works they would want to dominate the self driving taxi market and not sell it to the competition. Their competitors would then have to install this whole Waymo hardware suit, making it not very practical for OEMs and normal cars. Uber or Lyft might be costumers, but why would you sell it to them if you could just replace them. Waymo has burned money for 10+ years, signing a few licensing deal for a slightly better Mobile Eye will not give the return they are hoping for.

gbronner 6y ago
Hardware costs will go way down. Lidar @ 100$, cheaper chips, cheaper sensors, etc. They are still in a learning phase -- they charge enough so as not to distort rider behavior, but they expect to lose money on each ride. Apart from that, why build cars when you can sell the system to everyone?
- kanwisher 6y ago
  Lidar requires accurate maps, using vision allows Tesla to drive on roads its never seen
  - gbronner 6y ago
    You can use both if you want to. Tesla went with cameras only because they thought Lidar was too expensive. Not having lidar has directly caused a bunch of autopilot crashes, so I expect they'll add it.
BoorishBears 6y ago
> Waymo focuses on the easiest thing first. Hilarious to hear this come from someone rooting for the guys who took an off the shelf LKA + ACC system that couldn't handle stationary objects, turned it on full-time, and called it "Autopilot". Of course the decision to essentially misuse that sensor suite killed a few people but that's neither here nor there right.
altacc 6y ago
> Waymo has burned money for 10+ years I don't think you can disparage Waymo and cheerlead Tesla on the basis that you think Waymo a money fire whilst ignoring that Tesla is massively in debt and has yet to post a positive annual net income. Tesla has burnt money for 17 years and it's recent profitable quarters are only the beginning of a turnaround that is not yet anywhere near sufficient to recoup it's losses. In the meantime legacy car manufacturers are catching up with Tesla's offering and providing ever stronger competition. The coronavirus has disrupted production & made sales numbers confusing, but Tesla has lost its top spot in markets it led until recently. Tesla has been great PR for EVs and an important early market innovator, but it is by no means guaranteed long term success in either self-driving or car production.
- nickik 6y ago
  Tesla has more cash on hand then they have debt. They don't have a lot of debt for a car manufacturers? Maybe look up the basic facts next time. The difference is that Tesla had a clear buissness plan to profit that they executed step by step. And the only reason they lost money is because they were expanding production capacity. The analysis of the cars clearly showed that they had great margin on the cars, by far the best in the industry for BEV. The same can not be said for Waymo. Its basically burning money and not even a clear plan on how this can eventually be recaptured. Tesla already makes money with teams that work on this stuff. > In the meantime legacy car manufacturers are catching up with Tesla's offering Wait, are you somebody from 2014? Because we have been hearing that since then and its still not true. And even if it were, it would not be a thread for Tesla, its a thread for ICE vehicles. > but Tesla has lost its top spot in markets it led until recently. Tell that to the 18% global market share in terms of EV sales. Its more if we are talking BEV. And its even more if we are talking revenue. And its even higher in terms of profit. The facts actually say that Tesla has been expanding its global market share. But of course if you only read media articles that say 'in August Tesla fell to second spot in Lithuania' and BS like that, then you end up being misinformed. Tesla also a has 3 gigantic new factories coming online next year, plus they easily have the best strategy for battery scale.

by nickik 6y ago

gbronner 6y ago

Hardware costs will go way down. Lidar @ 100$, cheaper chips, cheaper sensors, etc. They are still in a learning phase -- they charge enough so as not to distort rider behavior, but they expect to lose money on each ride. Apart from that, why build cars when you can sell the system to everyone?

kanwisher 6y ago
Lidar requires accurate maps, using vision allows Tesla to drive on roads its never seen
- gbronner 6y ago
  You can use both if you want to. Tesla went with cameras only because they thought Lidar was too expensive. Not having lidar has directly caused a bunch of autopilot crashes, so I expect they'll add it.

BoorishBears 6y ago

> Waymo focuses on the easiest thing first. Hilarious to hear this come from someone rooting for the guys who took an off the shelf LKA + ACC system that couldn't handle stationary objects, turned it on full-time, and called it "Autopilot". Of course the decision to essentially misuse that sensor suite killed a few people but that's neither here nor there right.

altacc 6y ago

> Waymo has burned money for 10+ years I don't think you can disparage Waymo and cheerlead Tesla on the basis that you think Waymo a money fire whilst ignoring that Tesla is massively in debt and has yet to post a positive annual net income. Tesla has burnt money for 17 years and it's recent profitable quarters are only the beginning of a turnaround that is not yet anywhere near sufficient to recoup it's losses. In the meantime legacy car manufacturers are catching up with Tesla's offering and providing ever stronger competition. The coronavirus has disrupted production & made sales numbers confusing, but Tesla has lost its top spot in markets it led until recently. Tesla has been great PR for EVs and an important early market innovator, but it is by no means guaranteed long term success in either self-driving or car production.

nickik 6y ago
Tesla has more cash on hand then they have debt. They don't have a lot of debt for a car manufacturers? Maybe look up the basic facts next time. The difference is that Tesla had a clear buissness plan to profit that they executed step by step. And the only reason they lost money is because they were expanding production capacity. The analysis of the cars clearly showed that they had great margin on the cars, by far the best in the industry for BEV. The same can not be said for Waymo. Its basically burning money and not even a clear plan on how this can eventually be recaptured. Tesla already makes money with teams that work on this stuff. > In the meantime legacy car manufacturers are catching up with Tesla's offering Wait, are you somebody from 2014? Because we have been hearing that since then and its still not true. And even if it were, it would not be a thread for Tesla, its a thread for ICE vehicles. > but Tesla has lost its top spot in markets it led until recently. Tell that to the 18% global market share in terms of EV sales. Its more if we are talking BEV. And its even more if we are talking revenue. And its even higher in terms of profit. The facts actually say that Tesla has been expanding its global market share. But of course if you only read media articles that say 'in August Tesla fell to second spot in Lithuania' and BS like that, then you end up being misinformed. Tesla also a has 3 gigantic new factories coming online next year, plus they easily have the best strategy for battery scale.