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G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

nytimes.com

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Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#191

Post by tonyedgecombe »

discodave wrote: post #142
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see the opportunity for them, on the other hand I can see the threat, if autonomous cars become ubiquitous then why would you bother owning your own? Also if rental becomes the dominant model then customers aren't going to worry so much about those expensive extras where car manufacturers make their profits.

It's similar to Amazon viewing the Kindle as an opportunity. If you aren't in a position to prevent innovation from happening then you may as well be the leader of said innovation.

Just like Apple is happy for iPad sales to eat into MacBook sales, however I don't see GM as being the type of organisation able to pull this off.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#192

Post by jckr »

swax wrote: post #176
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #140

It is predicted that autonomous cars will reduce America's fleet of vehicles by something like 10-fold [1]. I think it will unfold something like this: FIRST, instead three cars for mom, dad and kid, the average family has one car that drops mom off to work, then dad, and then the teen off to school. SECOND, aforementioned car makes use of its down time to drive strangers around via Uber, Lyft, et cetera. The car's o…

Aren't Uber and Lyft middle-men? Why wouldn't car companies themselves offer a subscription service for access to their cars? You don't pay more to own a BMW, but you do pay more for a BMW subscription over a Honda one. Uber would probably be a cheaper subscription service for 'used' autonomous cars.

yeah, but good luck for developing that middle-layer from scratch.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#193

Post by richardlblair »

mbesto wrote: post #184
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #140

It is predicted that autonomous cars will reduce America's fleet of vehicles by something like 10-fold [1]. I think it will unfold something like this: FIRST, instead three cars for mom, dad and kid, the average family has one car that drops mom off to work, then dad, and then the teen off to school. SECOND, aforementioned car makes use of its down time to drive strangers around via Uber, Lyft, et cetera. The car's o…

And what about trucking? According to this[0] there are approximately 3.5 million professional truck drivers in the United States. I hate to go down the route of "machines are going to replace everything", but doesn't autonomous automobiles and AI based routing mean these people effectively get eliminated? http://www.alltrucking.com/faq/truck-drivers-in-the-usa/

Yup, get ready for some major changes. The people who see this coming will be well ahead of the curve.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#194

Post by sanderjd »

swax wrote: post #176
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #140

It is predicted that autonomous cars will reduce America's fleet of vehicles by something like 10-fold [1]. I think it will unfold something like this: FIRST, instead three cars for mom, dad and kid, the average family has one car that drops mom off to work, then dad, and then the teen off to school. SECOND, aforementioned car makes use of its down time to drive strangers around via Uber, Lyft, et cetera. The car's o…

Aren't Uber and Lyft middle-men? Why wouldn't car companies themselves offer a subscription service for access to their cars? You don't pay more to own a BMW, but you do pay more for a BMW subscription over a Honda one. Uber would probably be a cheaper subscription service for 'used' autonomous cars.

Because of specialization. Manufacturing cars is a different core competency than running fleets.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#195

Post by jckr »

serge2k wrote: post #67
asafira wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Uber buy the Carnegie Mellon robotics division? Is it too much to think they might try for their own hardware platform? It might be, but why else do so?

Developing a car is very expensive.

and yet it's the easy part in the self-driving car problem, re how you can navigate the car in a fully autonomous way.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#196

Post by Sven7 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #140

It is predicted that autonomous cars will reduce America's fleet of vehicles by something like 10-fold [1]. I think it will unfold something like this: FIRST, instead three cars for mom, dad and kid, the average family has one car that drops mom off to work, then dad, and then the teen off to school. SECOND, aforementioned car makes use of its down time to drive strangers around via Uber, Lyft, et cetera. The car's o…

So the time frames for these predictions are "sooner", "later", "drastically sooner" and "within our lifetime". That's nice.

You sir are well qualified to work on Wall Street.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#197

Post by sanderjd »

sjm-lbm wrote: post #179
Aloha wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Edison who also invented the lightbulb, phonograph, motion pictures, carbon microphone, fuel cell, stock ticker, and alkaline battery.

I'm far from an expert on all of the details, but I find it amusing how similar Edison was to Steve Jobs: both non-engineers that seemed to have enough technical intuition to facilitate an amazing amount of development within their organizations, all while taking (perhaps) more credit than they deserved and running their businesses in occasionally ruthless ways. Yet, somehow it's popular to want to emulate Steve Jobs…

Anecdotally, it seems pretty consistent to me – people who scoff at Edison also scoff at Jobs, and people who want to emulate Jobs aren't those who scoff at Edison. But you certainly see both sides here.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#198

Post by netcan »

Everyone is relating this mostly to autonomous vehicles. I think this might take uber/lyft straight out of the game.

Ubers advantage/most is the network. Its hard to beat a network advantage. They are installed and plugged into a lot of people's creditcredit cards. That works just as well for self driving cars. But the advantage of the driver network is straight out the door if autonomous vehicles replace humans. Networks become a much easier problem to solve.

I don't see it happening within 10 years but if I we're uber or lyft I wouldn't want to.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#199

Post by acchow »

peter303 wrote: post #132

GM had and still has an impressive technical research center. Its just that establishment big companies dont get the respect that startup companies do. Nor can the employees win big like in a startup IPO. General Electric is currently running a humorous TV commercial about this. A hipster engineers friends throw him a "new job party". But they go slackjaw when they discover he joinged GE instead of Facebook. GE has t…

> Its just that establishment big companies dont get the respect that startup companies do.

Ummm... Apple? Google? Goldman? They get "less respect" than Uber and Airbnb and Pinterest?

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#200

Post by tonyedgecombe »

MajorLOL wrote: post #120
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see the opportunity for them, on the other hand I can see the threat, if autonomous cars become ubiquitous then why would you bother owning your own? Also if rental becomes the dominant model then customers aren't going to worry so much about those expensive extras where car manufacturers make their profits.

>autonomous cars become ubiquitous then why would you bother owning your own? Anything requiring a truck (60% of new vehicle sales) will not be something that you use as a automated vehicle that is for rent. You really are ok with ordering up a driverless car that I will take off-road and load up with scrap materials from a house remodel and send off, driverless down the road with my trash hanging out the back? I rea…

This is exactly where they start to loose, why pay the premium for a feature you only use occasionally?

The car industry has spent a fortune developing the concept of the car as a status symbol, the idea that you need a truck to haul stuff, a big V8 to prove you are a suitable mate, an executive saloon to show your well up the corporate ladder.

The taxi industry hasn't done this and couldn't, utility trumps status when you are cold and wet and waiting for a ride.

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