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SpaceX: you want to launch a satellite into space? Here's how much it costs and here's a web page to order a ride-sharing mission. Waymo: want to buy a lidar f

• ur-whale 6y ago
  > Tell us about yourself. Cultural DNA is hard to shake.
• ra7 6y ago
  I imagine they do it because they don't want to sell to a competitor.
  • monkmartinez 6y ago
    Needless friction. A competitor is going to get one if they really want it.
• alisonkisk 6y ago
  The ride-share is available at https://waymo.com/waymo-one/ https://waymo.com/waymo-one/ (SpaceX doesn't sell their rocket parts.)
  • Judgmentality 6y ago
    That's still an apply-to-be-accepted beta program, not something the public can actually use/purchase.
    • polishTar 6y ago
      Not anymore. As of a couple months ago its been opened up. anyone (in the service area) can use it. Relevant blog post: https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-driverless.html https://blog.waymo.com/2020/10/waymo-is-opening-its-fully-dr...
    • crazysim 6y ago
      You can just show up (or fake being) in the geofence, open up the app, and you can sign up immediately.
    • Rebelgecko 6y ago
      I'm able to install the Waymo app, log in (disclaimer-I work for the same parent company as Waymo but I'm using my regular old personal email address) and the app appears ready to let me hail a ride. AFAIK it's fully open to the general public.
      • Judgmentality 6y ago
        I'm incredibly suspicious of this. People in /r/selfdrivingcars are all still clamoring for when they can finally try it, including people that live in the area. Besides that, when I google I can't find any recent test drives by the media using Waymo. This doesn't pass the sniff test. Being able to sign up has been possible for years. The question is can anybody actually hail a ride with Waymo? Because numerous people on r/selfdrivingcars are claiming they can't.
        • ra7 6y ago
          They are indeed available. You can go to Chandler, download the app and hail a ride. There’s nothing suspicious about it and r/selfdrivingcars will tell you it’s possible too.
        • Rebelgecko 6y ago
          What happens when you install the app and try to hail a ride (assuming you're in an area where the service is officially available to the general public)?
        • ilaksh 6y ago
          Go on YouTube and search for "Waymo ride". There are a lot.
• tw04 6y ago
  I would imagine because the hardware itself is borderline useless. There's likely significant integration work and they want to understand how much help you're going to need to integrate it. Tesla buying the hardware probably just wants a schematic and a part. GM probably wants a crew of 100 engineers to help put it into a car and support it for the duration.
  • colechristensen 6y ago
    Integrating a satellite on to a launch vehicle on average is, it is fair to say, more than half the work of your entire mission, whatever it may be. Far more work than integrating a lidar sensor into your product. Source: working with both lidar systems and designing a satellite system for launch in university days.
    • tw04 6y ago
      How many decades of support do you require from Space-x after the satellite is launched? How many ntsb recalls have resulted from a rocket sensor failure in a satellite launch that wasn’t detected for a decade after initial production? I think you're short changing the differenc e in long term support an automotive MFG needs in comparison to a one time launch
      • akiselev 6y ago
        Forget support - just getting a chassis even tested costs an order of magnitude more. For the price of a single five year model refresh and accompanying crash testing, NASA would be able to buy at least a dozen SpaceX launch vehicles or three to five full missions once you include overhead. The average car company will do at least half a dozen of these refreshes every five years like clockwork and you can bet a chassis optimized for LIDAR will have to do the full suite of tests.
• paxys 6y ago
  I can't believe I can actually enter my credit card number and pay for a $1M+ rocket launch payload right now.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • totetsu 6y ago
    I never even considered that the credit card payment paradigm keeps going after a few 100 thousand.
    • why_only_15 6y ago
      Looks like you're just paying the $5000 reserve? I assume a million dollar transfer must be a wire.
    • nmstoker 6y ago
      There was that famous Amex case in the 80s where through some massive misunderstanding the restaurant (I think) got mixed up using the terminal and accidentally entered the long number for the amount. It being the early days of those terminals, the cardholder didn't notice and accepted it and Amex let it go through as it was one of their no limit cards. The overnight interest alone was astronomical. Fortunately Amex saw the PR value in being decent and refunded everything.
• klintcho 6y ago
  On the same note: I love the saying that comes up here and other places sometimes "if SpaceX can have pricing on their launches, your SaaS product can provide a pricing section". If I can't afford it, i'm not of interest to you anyway, if I can afford it, why not give it to me ? Only time I can understand it if you have something highly customized which will greatly affect the price, if not just give it to me.
  • bombcar 6y ago
    It’s cargo cult copying of places like Oracle where the “how much it costs” depends on “who is asking” and “how much revenue do you have”.
  • paxys 6y ago
    The simple reason is that there's an entire enterprise software sales establishment out there that has every incentive to keep things exactly how they are. Individual salespeople get fat commissions, sales executives get bonuses, CIOs and other purchasing authorities get (both legal and illegal) kickbacks. A simple pricing and checkout process would rock this whole ecosystem.
    • fireeyed 6y ago
      This ^ just ask CIOs about the kickbacks they receive from offshore outsourcing companies in the form of condos purchased by anonymous LLCs and held by “trusts”. Somebodys gotta get a cut of the billions in profits these offshore companies reap.
  • wcarss 6y ago
    I don't want to defend hiding the price too vehemently, but we should be fair here: there is a difference between "I cannot afford that", and "I'm not psychologically ready to agree to pay that" -- at the end there is an implied ", yet". Hiding the price means a customer can't see a number and compare it against a competitor in a drive-by fashion. It means the customer has to self-vet to the stage of interest where they'll spend the time to fill in a form. It means that there is a high likelihood you'll get to have a conversation with them, which will hopefully stick with them even if they decide not to buy because of price. It means that if they decide not to buy, you're likely to hear about why. It means you can tailor your sales message to them. It means you can empathize with them and try to better understand whether your product will fit them, maybe what you need your team to build before they would be a good sale. And so on. It's a very, very reasonable and sound tactic. I also don't like encountering it when I just want to know about something's cost, but it's not done for nothing.
• gamblor956 6y ago
  SpaceX is selling a one-time spot on a rocket. That relationship is measured in days, maybe weeks. Waymo is selling a product that necessarily involves a long business relationship measured over years or months and significant amounts of collaboration. They're simply doing due diligence, like anyone would before entering into a long-term commitment.
  • nkoren 6y ago
    I'm guessing you haven't bought a lot of rocket launches. Launches are often bought years in advance (although SpaceX is reducing that to months, it's still not days or weeks). For payloads, they need to be certified for things like ITAR compliance, mass, mass distribution, power/thermal requirements on the pad, deorbit / debris mitigation plans, etc. etc. etc. The launch provider needs to care about all these things, since they'll be on the hook for many of them. It's not a simple relationship.
    • gamblor956 6y ago
      Almost everything you just described is handled by the launch provider. The working relationship is SpaceX asking their customer a bunch of question so they can provide the basic service being paid for and satisfy the basic compliance legally required of them. It's a complex relationship, but isn't a collaborative relationship. (I have worked for a SpaceX customer. Unless you actually work for SpaceX or another SpaceX customer, I'm pretty certain I've more experience on this matter than you.)
      • nkoren 6y ago
        I co-own a company that is a supplier to both SpaceX and many of their customers. I haven't worked on a launch license myself, but between what my company does and various friends in the industry, I'm familiar enough with the process. You're right that the relationship between the launch provider and and customer is complex but not particularly collaborative. The GP point is simply that SpaceX doesn't build that complexity into their commercial pricing -- which is awesome. (Their pricing for government customers is much less transparent, precisely because the relationships are MUCH more complex and collaborative). For Waymo or other LIDAR providers, the relationship with the customer is certainly NOT more inherently complex than the relationship between a launch provider and their customers. They're being opaque about pricing for strategic purposes, which I'll avoid speculating about, since they're also one of my company's customers...
• wave_function 6y ago
  Spacex rideshare for those who are curious https://www.spacex.com/rideshare/ https://www.spacex.com/rideshare/
  • ElijahLynn 6y ago
    Thank you! And after reading the above, they have an entire 80-page RIDESHARE PAYLOAD USER’S GUIDE PDF here > https://storage.googleapis.com/rideshare-static/Rideshare_Payload_Users_Guide.pdf https://storage.googleapis.com/rideshare-static/Rideshare_Pa...
• guyzero 6y ago
  They're not selling lidar units, this is lead generation for the M&A team.
• shermozle 6y ago
  The thing it tells you: it's >$100,000. I imagine you get more than one for that, but they're not interested unless you're spending that minimum. Source: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-duckies/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-... (see Notice the gap? There’s no software priced between $1000 and $75,000.)
  • akiselev 6y ago
    That article has a huge blindspot. The vast majority of professional software I've come across is in the $1k-50k/year range, ranging from $1k/seat mechanical CAD and other PDL/manufacturing/etc software to $50k/seat silicon design packages. Contracts for the latter may break $100k on a regular basis but many if not most customers for the rest, like the diaspora of subcontractors in automotive, biotech, or the MIC are small to medium sized businesses with annual accounts under $100k.
• tyingq 6y ago
  New Customer: Uh, hey, I'm from Pronto AI and we're interested in doing a trial with your Laser Bear...
• utf_8x 6y ago
  Not to mention: Waymo: "you can't have a self-driving car without LIDAR, trust us" Also waymo: "on a different note: we sell LIDAR now, completely unrelated tho"