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All while Waymo is expanding to more and more cities, including Detroit where it will deal with snow and ice. Waymo is years ahead of Tesla in the self-driving

All while Waymo is expanding to more and more cities, including Detroit where it will deal with snow and ice. Waymo is years ahead of Tesla in the self-driving race. It's possible Tesla never succeeds in launching a truly self-driving car.

LurkandComment 11mo ago
For a fraction of Musk's bonus he could buy Waymo
- fluidcruft 11mo ago
  Musk is gonna buy Alphabet? Fascinating.
  - Octoth0rpe 11mo ago
    Alphabet might be willing sell off just waymo.
    - fluidcruft 11mo ago
      So the idea is a memestock that can't deliver can just memebuy its competitor with fake money? Pure anti-Capitalist nonsense. Companies fail. Let them die.
    - dylan604 11mo ago
      Has Waymo become successful reaching a critical mass of users yet? If so, they would most likely shut it down based on historical examples. Imagine if they had sold those deprecated products instead. Maybe not a financial significance, but there'd be some interesting products still kicking
      - deleted 11mo ago
        [deleted]
      - madamelic 11mo ago
        Considering Boston Dynamics sat around for like 15 years being a research lab and only started commercializing when they were sold... I'd agree. Argue with that as you like but Google _loves_ to sit around on good ideas and, in my opinion, hamstring them away from pushing their products to commercialization.
      - senordevnyc 11mo ago
        What's the highest revenue product that Google shut down? Maybe Google+? But I wouldn't be surprised if Waymo is already making way more revenue than Google+ ever did, while barely scratching the surface of immediate demand.
        dylan604 11mo ago
        was G+ around long enough to generate revenue at all? there was no activity on it that would have been worthy to buy ad space within it. obviously, theGoog had the advantage of owning the ad space just like they had an advantage of converting all G users to G+ users without consent from those users. Even with that, they still had no users
        senordevnyc 11mo ago
        Yeah, I don't blame anyone for thinking Google shuts down products constantly, but to be fair, they're making hundreds of billions per year and the stuff they shut down are almost all little hobby projects that people love, but are a terrible business for them. That's pretty different from shutting down Waymo.
    - 4kchiefofstaff 11mo ago
      Alphabet is not stupid. They are doing this to be part of the ecosystem. The same with robots. Before they sell it to some competitor, they will shelf it and will bet on nvidias autonomoes car platform.
- drivingmenuts 11mo ago
  What value does he bring to Tesla? or SpaceX? Or any of his other companies, for that matter?
  - pstuart 11mo ago
    He pumps up the meme stock price -- the reason it's so high anyway is from his showboating (autonomous driving! robots! AI! robotaxi! etc...)
octocop 11mo ago
They are in completely different leagues, the Tesla robotaxi vehicle is probably cost 10x less, at least.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- dachworker 11mo ago
  Isn't the lesson from the success of TSLA, that you don't compete on price? That's what made Tesla the first successful EV. Because unlike the rest, they didn't try to compete on price and offer a mass market consumer vehicle. Instead they started with a roadster and then a luxury saloon both targeting the upper end of the market. I don't see the point of a budget taxi car. After all even the human driven counterparts tend to be higher end luxury saloons or SUVs.
  - LorenDB 11mo ago
    I assume you mean "sedan" rather than "saloon"?
    - dachworker 11mo ago
      It's the British English equivalent.
  - madamelic 11mo ago
    Robot Taxis will be competing on price. Whoever can release the lowest cost per mile and most reliable taxi will take lion's share simply because consumers are generally price conscious about transport. Very few will be analyzing the data if two are judged to be 'safe enough', it will come down to price. Companies like BYD and Tesla are positioned well for that if they can get their AV functionality proven out as both are fully integrated car manufacturers. Waymo doesn't have in-house manufacturing and is, to my knowledge, purely software so they have lots of vendors along with a relatively low output of vehicles. Their 2025 and 2026 plan is to build 2,500 new cars per year. Each Waymo car currently costs over $100k. Even if Tesla was pushing out Model Ys as their robotaxi platform, they could flood the market very easily in both scale and price per mile _if_ UFSD (unsupervised FSD) was proven.
samwillis 11mo ago
I think is really interesting how it's often suggested Waymo is at a disadvantage over Tesla due to its reliance on LIDAR and the costs associated with it. But the reality is that it's enabled Waymo to move faster and gain significant more operational experience than Tesla, and that's far more important than front loading with cost reductions in a service business. Tesla have been operating as a product business, and cost reduction of that product was key to scale and profitability. I completely understand why they have focused on optical sensors for autopilot, lidar was always going to be impossibly expensive for a consumer product. Waymo on the other hand have always been aiming to build a service business and that changes the model significantly, they need to get to market and gain operational experience. Doing that with more expensive equipment to move faster is exactly what was needed. They can worry about cost of building their cars later, much later.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 11mo ago
  Tesla's strategy is bad. Build something that works first then optimize. They optimized for cost first and may never get it to work.
  - consumer451 11mo ago
    That's an interesting take. So, classic premature optimization for scale?
    - xnx 11mo ago
      Yes. A normal approach is: 1) Make it work 2) Make it right(/safe) 3) Make it fast/cheap
      - consumer451 11mo ago
        The surprising thing to me is when you look at Starlink, there was a very expensive blocker there: consumer phased array. Prior to Starlink, I think the cheapest consumer unit was around $50k. That did not stop Musk from charging ahead. Is there some technological thing about LiDAR that would prevent similar cost reductions? Or, is it just the philosophical difference over pre-mapping, and not doing so?
testing22321 11mo ago
I have no doubt Waymo is ahead of Tesla right now. Why does it then follow that Tesla will never release a truly self driving car? That makes no sense. Is it somehow impossible for an achievement to be reached by more than one person/company? Of course not. The hyperbole is not needed, and does nothing but remove credibility from your statement
- xnx 11mo ago
  > Why does it then follow that Tesla will never release a truly self driving car? Never is a long time, but it's possible that Tesla adopts LIDAR before it gets camera-only to work. There are all kind of historical technological dead-end examples (e.g. planes that flap their wings).
  - testing22321 11mo ago
    You mean to say a company or person will change their approach, adapt and grow as they learn how to best achieve their goal? Ummmm yes. That is the definition of doing something difficult.
    - xoa 11mo ago
      >You mean to say a company or person will change their approach, adapt and grow as they learn how to best achieve their goal? There's nothing wrong with that in a vacuum, but it's objectively a different story when the company chooses to turn it into an enormous financial liability. That is a massive practical difference, with extremely pertinent example being Tesla vs SpaceX. SpaceX has had enormous success running a hardware rich testing regime, and they're very willing to move fast and break things... but NEVER with customer payloads. Which is how that aphorism was supposed to be applied. You can and often should be extremely aggressive exploring the entire problem space in testing before you move into final build and then production, but once you're dealing with customers then it has to be done very differently. Tesla absolutely could have experimented to their heart's desire without making any financial promises let alone actually entering into end customer contracts and taking hundreds of millions of dollars in preorder money for a future feature on ass-pulled timelines. But that's not the path they took, and that leaves them in a much uglier position when it comes to reacting to data and changing their approach because they've already locked in hardware to paying customers. That's the exact opposite of what SpaceX or any normal responsible company does.
hnburnsy 11mo ago
It would be sad if Tesla or some other entity doesn't compete in the space? I dont want a monolpoly or even a duopoly. Give me 4 or 5 players for true choice and competition.
- krupan 11mo ago
  Someone should have kept investing in Cruise for that. They were basically on par with Waymo, but then GM stopped the funding and shut Cruise down
reaperducer 11mo ago
It's possible Tesla never succeeds in launching a truly self-driving car. It doesn't have to. The money's been made. The stock's been pumped. Mission accomplished. As for calling it fraud, well the government's closed. The moose out front should have told 'ya.

LurkandComment 11mo ago

For a fraction of Musk's bonus he could buy Waymo

fluidcruft 11mo ago
Musk is gonna buy Alphabet? Fascinating.
- Octoth0rpe 11mo ago
  Alphabet might be willing sell off just waymo.
  - fluidcruft 11mo ago
    So the idea is a memestock that can't deliver can just memebuy its competitor with fake money? Pure anti-Capitalist nonsense. Companies fail. Let them die.
  - dylan604 11mo ago
    Has Waymo become successful reaching a critical mass of users yet? If so, they would most likely shut it down based on historical examples. Imagine if they had sold those deprecated products instead. Maybe not a financial significance, but there'd be some interesting products still kicking
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
    - madamelic 11mo ago
      Considering Boston Dynamics sat around for like 15 years being a research lab and only started commercializing when they were sold... I'd agree. Argue with that as you like but Google _loves_ to sit around on good ideas and, in my opinion, hamstring them away from pushing their products to commercialization.
    - senordevnyc 11mo ago
      What's the highest revenue product that Google shut down? Maybe Google+? But I wouldn't be surprised if Waymo is already making way more revenue than Google+ ever did, while barely scratching the surface of immediate demand.
      - dylan604 11mo ago
        was G+ around long enough to generate revenue at all? there was no activity on it that would have been worthy to buy ad space within it. obviously, theGoog had the advantage of owning the ad space just like they had an advantage of converting all G users to G+ users without consent from those users. Even with that, they still had no users
        senordevnyc 11mo ago
        Yeah, I don't blame anyone for thinking Google shuts down products constantly, but to be fair, they're making hundreds of billions per year and the stuff they shut down are almost all little hobby projects that people love, but are a terrible business for them. That's pretty different from shutting down Waymo.
  - 4kchiefofstaff 11mo ago
    Alphabet is not stupid. They are doing this to be part of the ecosystem. The same with robots. Before they sell it to some competitor, they will shelf it and will bet on nvidias autonomoes car platform.
drivingmenuts 11mo ago
What value does he bring to Tesla? or SpaceX? Or any of his other companies, for that matter?
- pstuart 11mo ago
  He pumps up the meme stock price -- the reason it's so high anyway is from his showboating (autonomous driving! robots! AI! robotaxi! etc...)

octocop 11mo ago

They are in completely different leagues, the Tesla robotaxi vehicle is probably cost 10x less, at least.

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
dachworker 11mo ago
Isn't the lesson from the success of TSLA, that you don't compete on price? That's what made Tesla the first successful EV. Because unlike the rest, they didn't try to compete on price and offer a mass market consumer vehicle. Instead they started with a roadster and then a luxury saloon both targeting the upper end of the market. I don't see the point of a budget taxi car. After all even the human driven counterparts tend to be higher end luxury saloons or SUVs.
- LorenDB 11mo ago
  I assume you mean "sedan" rather than "saloon"?
  - dachworker 11mo ago
    It's the British English equivalent.
- madamelic 11mo ago
  Robot Taxis will be competing on price. Whoever can release the lowest cost per mile and most reliable taxi will take lion's share simply because consumers are generally price conscious about transport. Very few will be analyzing the data if two are judged to be 'safe enough', it will come down to price. Companies like BYD and Tesla are positioned well for that if they can get their AV functionality proven out as both are fully integrated car manufacturers. Waymo doesn't have in-house manufacturing and is, to my knowledge, purely software so they have lots of vendors along with a relatively low output of vehicles. Their 2025 and 2026 plan is to build 2,500 new cars per year. Each Waymo car currently costs over $100k. Even if Tesla was pushing out Model Ys as their robotaxi platform, they could flood the market very easily in both scale and price per mile _if_ UFSD (unsupervised FSD) was proven.

samwillis 11mo ago

I think is really interesting how it's often suggested Waymo is at a disadvantage over Tesla due to its reliance on LIDAR and the costs associated with it. But the reality is that it's enabled Waymo to move faster and gain significant more operational experience than Tesla, and that's far more important than front loading with cost reductions in a service business. Tesla have been operating as a product business, and cost reduction of that product was key to scale and profitability. I completely understand why they have focused on optical sensors for autopilot, lidar was always going to be impossibly expensive for a consumer product. Waymo on the other hand have always been aiming to build a service business and that changes the model significantly, they need to get to market and gain operational experience. Doing that with more expensive equipment to move faster is exactly what was needed. They can worry about cost of building their cars later, much later.

2OEH8eoCRo0 11mo ago
Tesla's strategy is bad. Build something that works first then optimize. They optimized for cost first and may never get it to work.
- consumer451 11mo ago
  That's an interesting take. So, classic premature optimization for scale?
  - xnx 11mo ago
    Yes. A normal approach is: 1) Make it work 2) Make it right(/safe) 3) Make it fast/cheap
    - consumer451 11mo ago
      The surprising thing to me is when you look at Starlink, there was a very expensive blocker there: consumer phased array. Prior to Starlink, I think the cheapest consumer unit was around $50k. That did not stop Musk from charging ahead. Is there some technological thing about LiDAR that would prevent similar cost reductions? Or, is it just the philosophical difference over pre-mapping, and not doing so?

testing22321 11mo ago

I have no doubt Waymo is ahead of Tesla right now. Why does it then follow that Tesla will never release a truly self driving car? That makes no sense. Is it somehow impossible for an achievement to be reached by more than one person/company? Of course not. The hyperbole is not needed, and does nothing but remove credibility from your statement

xnx 11mo ago
> Why does it then follow that Tesla will never release a truly self driving car? Never is a long time, but it's possible that Tesla adopts LIDAR before it gets camera-only to work. There are all kind of historical technological dead-end examples (e.g. planes that flap their wings).
- testing22321 11mo ago
  You mean to say a company or person will change their approach, adapt and grow as they learn how to best achieve their goal? Ummmm yes. That is the definition of doing something difficult.
  - xoa 11mo ago
    >You mean to say a company or person will change their approach, adapt and grow as they learn how to best achieve their goal? There's nothing wrong with that in a vacuum, but it's objectively a different story when the company chooses to turn it into an enormous financial liability. That is a massive practical difference, with extremely pertinent example being Tesla vs SpaceX. SpaceX has had enormous success running a hardware rich testing regime, and they're very willing to move fast and break things... but NEVER with customer payloads. Which is how that aphorism was supposed to be applied. You can and often should be extremely aggressive exploring the entire problem space in testing before you move into final build and then production, but once you're dealing with customers then it has to be done very differently. Tesla absolutely could have experimented to their heart's desire without making any financial promises let alone actually entering into end customer contracts and taking hundreds of millions of dollars in preorder money for a future feature on ass-pulled timelines. But that's not the path they took, and that leaves them in a much uglier position when it comes to reacting to data and changing their approach because they've already locked in hardware to paying customers. That's the exact opposite of what SpaceX or any normal responsible company does.

hnburnsy 11mo ago

It would be sad if Tesla or some other entity doesn't compete in the space? I dont want a monolpoly or even a duopoly. Give me 4 or 5 players for true choice and competition.

krupan 11mo ago
Someone should have kept investing in Cruise for that. They were basically on par with Waymo, but then GM stopped the funding and shut Cruise down

reaperducer 11mo ago

It's possible Tesla never succeeds in launching a truly self-driving car. It doesn't have to. The money's been made. The stock's been pumped. Mission accomplished. As for calling it fraud, well the government's closed. The moose out front should have told 'ya.