Comment by seanmcdirmid
Comment by seanmcdirmid 8 hours ago
Based on the news, I think Waymo will import base vehicle builds from China and then adding the control systems and software to those. So it’s not like they will start making cars.
Comment by seanmcdirmid 8 hours ago
Based on the news, I think Waymo will import base vehicle builds from China and then adding the control systems and software to those. So it’s not like they will start making cars.
They probably see the electronics and software as their product, hopefully they will license it to someone so my next car will have it :). Lidar prices are cheap enough these days (but coming out of China, so who knows with Trump if that will apply to us).
Another approach is Waymo acquires Tesla's auto technology. Tesla sloughs off its dinosaur car business to focus on its new robot mission, and Waymo detoxifies the Tesla auto brand.
Aside from destroying about $1.25 trillion of market cap, this would leave everyone better off.
You don't really maintain electronics, you swap them out when they are detected to be bad. Electric vehicles don't need tune ups or overhauls, it is light maintenance and full on component swaps. Send the defective components back to the factory for refurbishment and/or recycling.
Nah. The local car dealerships and Tesla service centers seem to be pretty busy doing heavy maintenance on electric vehicles. The drive train might be marginally simpler but there are still a lot of moving parts that break or corrode just like any other vehicle.
Body work, misaligned panels, I mean surely there is a lot of work to do on Teslas. But you don't need to build out for that, you could just get repair shops to do it under contract.
That sounds right. Unless Waymo considers car manufacturers to be its competition and therefore something to commoditize, it wouldn't make sense for them to get involved in ground-up manufacturing.
And by this point, it seems like an electric-car platform already is close to a commodity, which is another reason for Waymo not to waste capital building another.