3 ms·

Vehicle manufacturing isn't related to Amazon's business. They wouldn't gain any strategic advantage over any of the competitors in their industry by owning a

by danans 3y ago

Vehicle manufacturing isn't related to Amazon's business. They wouldn't gain any strategic advantage over any of the competitors in their industry by owning a vehicle manufacturer. The only value of EV delivery trucks for Amazon is helping their brand image and reducing their fuel and maintenance expenses. They can get that with any electric delivery truck manufacturer. The only thing that owning Rivian would do is put pressure on their profits.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
philwelch 3y ago
Amazon did buy Kiva, their warehouse-robot manufacturer, many years ago. But a delivery truck is a much more generic product that you don’t benefit from owning and vertically integrating the same way.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Yep. Optimizing or improving the efficiency of warehouse operations is much closer to a core competency for the company. Even UPS, who design their own delivery vehicles, contract out the manufacturing.
BHSPitMonkey 3y ago
> Vehicle manufacturing isn't related to Amazon's business. This is a somewhat funny thing to say about a company whose "business" has gradually come to include: B2C e-commerce, B2B e-commerce platforms, web hosting (AWS), brick and mortar grocery store chains (Whole Foods and Fresh/Go), pharmaceuticals, healthcare (One Medical), Twitch, streaming video games (Luna), film and television production (in-house and through its acquisition of MGM), consumer electronics (Kindle, Alexa, Fire), home security (Ring), robotics, and satellites (Kuiper). How many of these were "related" to Amazon's business, which, as we all know, is selling books through the mail?
- danans 3y ago
  Nearly everything business you listed is about selling a high volume of products and services with relatively low marginal cost of production or distribution. That's true for food, books, movies, and compute. The robots are clearly related to warehouse automation. Amazon sells very few things that cost as much as a car, and when they do, they don't manufacture them, because each transaction carries a lot of risk and overhead. That's not to say they'd never acquire them, but the lack of business alignment makes it seem less likely.
- jfghi 3y ago
  And of course fintech https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2021/04/30/is-amazon-building-the-next-generation-bank/?sh=61fa93417ddd https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2021/04/30/is-amaz...

by danans 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

philwelch 3y ago

Amazon did buy Kiva, their warehouse-robot manufacturer, many years ago. But a delivery truck is a much more generic product that you don’t benefit from owning and vertically integrating the same way.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
SoftTalker 3y ago
Yep. Optimizing or improving the efficiency of warehouse operations is much closer to a core competency for the company. Even UPS, who design their own delivery vehicles, contract out the manufacturing.

BHSPitMonkey 3y ago

> Vehicle manufacturing isn't related to Amazon's business. This is a somewhat funny thing to say about a company whose "business" has gradually come to include: B2C e-commerce, B2B e-commerce platforms, web hosting (AWS), brick and mortar grocery store chains (Whole Foods and Fresh/Go), pharmaceuticals, healthcare (One Medical), Twitch, streaming video games (Luna), film and television production (in-house and through its acquisition of MGM), consumer electronics (Kindle, Alexa, Fire), home security (Ring), robotics, and satellites (Kuiper). How many of these were "related" to Amazon's business, which, as we all know, is selling books through the mail?

danans 3y ago
Nearly everything business you listed is about selling a high volume of products and services with relatively low marginal cost of production or distribution. That's true for food, books, movies, and compute. The robots are clearly related to warehouse automation. Amazon sells very few things that cost as much as a car, and when they do, they don't manufacture them, because each transaction carries a lot of risk and overhead. That's not to say they'd never acquire them, but the lack of business alignment makes it seem less likely.
jfghi 3y ago
And of course fintech https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2021/04/30/is-amazon-building-the-next-generation-bank/?sh=61fa93417ddd https://www.forbes.com/sites/moorinsights/2021/04/30/is-amaz...