New Industry VC的动态

And then there were three. General Motors’ decision to abandon its Cruise self-driving–car unit’s efforts in the robotaxi market on Tuesday is good news for Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo, already the market leader, and helpful for Tesla, which has ambitions in the market. (Let’s not forget Amazon,?which is testing its Zoox robotaxis?in San Francisco as well.) GM’s decision is a reminder of the brutally high costs of developing this technology, which over the years have forced out other developers, such as Uber and?Argo AI. GM has spent many billions on Cruise, the self-driving–car developer it acquired in 2016. Consider the bill for the past four years: GM reported Cruise’s operating losses totaling $5.8 billion between 2021 and 2023, plus $1.3 billion for the first nine months of this year. On top of that, it spent $2.1 billion in 2022 to buy out a former Cruise shareholder, SoftBank. GM had?slashed its spending?on Cruise over the past 12 months, to be sure, but that wasn’t enough. As GM said today, “considerable time and resources…would be needed to scale the business.” GM isn’t abandoning the technology it developed, instead planning to use it to make self-driving cars for personal use. But that approach is an uphill battle, given the premium GM would have to charge for self-driving cars to have a chance to earn a return on its investment. There’s a reason Waymo isn’t pursuing that approach right now, instead focusing on robotaxis. https://lnkd.in/gtbp-zEC

The big question for me is why do established companies with relatively large amounts of resources failing to deliver what startups with a lot less resources are able to achieve? General Motors's Cruise hits dead end! In automotive world we can see the electrification, AV services, ride hailing and so on... but automotive industry is not the only sector struggling with the same challenge. (Waymo, May Mobility, Zoox, Uber, Lyft, Tesla, Lucid Motors....) Would love to hear your thoughts?

This is very encouraging data from Waymo - exciting to see early signs of a real business and product that consumers love. Retention is the first step, then comes unit economics. The only other companies I know of that have made it this far into commercialization of automated driving are Tesla & comma.ai (albeit from the completely opposite direction).

As Tesla increases their focus on the Robotaxi Business, CEO Ross Gerber shares how Waymo’s success poses a significant barrier of entry in the market. #RossGerber #Tesla #Waymo #ElonMusk #Forbes #EV #AI #FSD #Tech https://buff.ly/3VOLyhi The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. You should consult a financial advisor before making any investment decisions.

Google’s Alphabet Inc. doubles down on robotaxis, committing another $5 billion into Waymo While some self-driving tech companies are dialing back their development or scrapping certain vehicles altogether, Waymo is pushing forward thanks to the financial support of parent company Alphabet Inc. (Google), which just committed to a fresh investment totaling five billion dollars. Self-driving cars, currently operating in today’s automotive landscape at varying levels of genuine autonomy, https://lnkd.in/gSJRfHCi

Really interesting read on the Tesla FSD vs. Waymo approach. There are challenges for both. The way l see it, Tesla is trying to solve a software problem through scale. Theory goes more data equals better performance (simply put). Waymo has a software, hardware and scale problem. Tesla has a hardware challenges too, of course, but it may be they will better the type and weatherproof vs expanding their hardware set. I'm not quite convinced Waymo is better with edge cases than FSD. It would be great if one was devised, with everyday drivers devising the cases. I vote for cab and truck/delivery drivers since they've probably seen it all. And yes ALL AI systems take a best guess approach at correctness when it comes to the less familiar. But quite honestly so do too many drivers on the road. https://lnkd.in/evvmxHhd #fsd #waymo #ai

Amazon's Zoox, Robotaxi Ride Sharing Company, has recruited Tesla's top Autopilot Fully Autonomous Technology Engineering Head. With General Motors recently closing its Cruise Robotaxi Ride Sharing Company, it only leaves three entities to now compete: Amazon's Zoox, Google's Waymo, and Tesla. The frenzied competition between each of them will be very interesting to watch. https://lnkd.in/e4jCeGHF

Driverless cars are going to become commoditized, and the cost of getting across town will drop dramatically. Right now, Waymo is the only real player in the US (and it's remarkably good). But once that changes, it'll be a race to the bottom. Players with the best user experience and best distribution will win in the short term, businesses with lowest capEx and opEx will win in the long-term. (Perceived safety may come into play, but consumers are obviously willing to give up some of that for lower prices) This is what Tesla is planning for and is counting on (since they lost the first-mover advantage). The question is, can they make their FSD tech actually work 100% reliably? Will Tesla shareholders be willing to tolerate a few more cycles of Musk's broken timeline promises?

Congrats on Tesla Robotaxi successful launch today 10/10, with my new book published today: “Robotaxi Revolution- Shaping Transportation, Industry and Daily Life at Amazon worldwide today” https://a.co/d/b8Il2HO