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i think the main goal of licencing would be less capital costs. buying cars isn't cheap, especially not at scale - licencing their tech to somebody else means
by notatoad 3y ago
i think the main goal of licencing would be less capital costs. buying cars isn't cheap, especially not at scale - licencing their tech to somebody else means every car they put on the road is $150k waymo doesn't have to spend.
- ra7 3y agoGood point. That would also allow them to bring true Level 4 autonomous driving to passenger cars with sufficient miniaturization of their sensor stack.
- jfoster 3y agoSomeone has to spend it, though. Uber seem in even less of a position to be footing that bill.
- notatoad 3y agobut if uber spend a couple billion on cars, and lyft spend a couple billion, and didi spends a couple billion, etc, that's a lot more spend than if only waymo spends it.
- jfoster 3y agoFrom Waymo's perspective it is certainly desirable to have someone else paying for the cars. The problem is that when others spend on it, Waymo has more leverage over them if the cars are only going to work with the Waymo driver. Perfect vendor lock-in on assets worth $150k each. What's in it for Uber? Perhaps just a more favorable & longer term deal, but if so, they're essentially handing over the future of their business to Waymo.