Only $1B? Kind of highlights that they are not that serious yet about the technology yet.
Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
21–30 of 86 posts
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#22I think by most accounts - 1) Google / Waymo is by far the furthest ahead in self-driving tech. 2) Self-driving is possible in at least certain circumstances in the next decade or two (already is to an extent today). 3) Transportation / automobiles is an absolutely massive industry. Even companies like Dana, Inc (maker of axles) have $4bil valuations. It's easy to see how a self-driving tech maker would be worth far…
How do you come to that first conclusion? It seems difficult to tell who is the “furthest ahead” because it’s a pretty complex race. For starters, we can’t even say with certainty who all of the competitors are. Some are very quiet or at early stages but could be working on a breakthrough problem that turns out to be a pivot point. Some are specializing. Who is going to scale up the best and most cost efficient solid…
> How do you come to that first conclusion?
I don't really trust any of the marketing (including videos) or friendly articles about how far along companies are. The best way to judge I've seen is by the mandatory reports companies testing in California must supply. By those, Waymo is far, far ahead as of 2016. They've driven 635,868 miles (two orders of magnitude more miles than their next closest competitor) and their miles driven per disengagement was 5,128 (an order of magnitude higher than the next closest, with many still in single digit miles per disengagement). I'm eager to see 2017 numbers. Perhaps one of the other major companies has caught up but I'm doubtful. That's a wide gap to close in a year.
Sure, the numbers could be gamed a little (just drive on the same road you can do perfectly every time every day all year) but doing that will never let you improve your real world performance (important for the big companies heavily invested in this, not so much for the smaller companies looking to get acquired).
I think it's reasonable to just ignore all the small companies working on this in stealth. It's all about testing for self driving cars. They can't perfect it just sitting in a garage and thinking really hard about what problems they may encounter and maybe a few prototype vehicles. They need as many cars as they can on the road driving and collecting data on real world situations.
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#23$94 billion in cash burning a hole in their pocket. $20x billion in new cash pouring in annually, expanding by 10%-20% per year. In another two years they'll be net cash richer than Apple is (as unlike Apple they pay no dividend and have almost entirely avoided taking on debt). There aren't very many large companies they can buy with that money, due to perpetually increasing anti-trust concerns. I suppose they could…
>So what to do?
They've spent over 30 billion building GCP. I'd rather they continue expanding GCP than waste a dime on Snap.
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#24I think by most accounts - 1) Google / Waymo is by far the furthest ahead in self-driving tech. 2) Self-driving is possible in at least certain circumstances in the next decade or two (already is to an extent today). 3) Transportation / automobiles is an absolutely massive industry. Even companies like Dana, Inc (maker of axles) have $4bil valuations. It's easy to see how a self-driving tech maker would be worth far…
> 4) Software tends to be a winner-take-most industry.
Yeah. I think this is it. I remember when google paid $1.6B for Youtube 10 years ago, people thought they were insane. Look at them now. Youtube dominates the web as video platform.
Pretty much the successful self-driving AI platform will probably dominate the market and will be installed in most cars. Like how Android dominates the smartphone market.
In tech/software, it seems to be winner-take-all market.
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you come to that first conclusion? It seems difficult to tell who is the “furthest ahead” because it’s a pretty complex race. For starters, we can’t even say with certainty who all of the competitors are. Some are very quiet or at early stages but could be working on a breakthrough problem that turns out to be a pivot point. Some are specializing. Who is going to scale up the best and most cost efficient solid…
> How do you come to that first conclusion? I don't really trust any of the marketing (including videos) or friendly articles about how far along companies are. The best way to judge I've seen is by the mandatory reports companies testing in California must supply. By those, Waymo is far, far ahead as of 2016. They've driven 635,868 miles (two orders of magnitude more miles than their next closest competitor) and the…
Isn't Uber testing in Pittsburgh and Phoenix? They wouldn't report those miles to California.
What about R&D outside of the US?
I don't think California reports are an adequate measure of progress. Additionally, I am not sure mileage matters as much -- you even suggest why in the next paragraph.
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
An excellent example is a 2014 article in Slate: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2014/10/... Consider that at the time, an engineer told him that the car was dependent on a level of mapping detail that was impractical at a nationwide level, that the car would run a red light if it wasn't on the car's map. The article also cites that the cars would have issues in bright sunlight, particularly deter…
Maybe they don't give a rat's ass about parking a car because it's trivial compared to the rest?
Yeah, if you can create a good enough multi-task (which driving is) learner to know how to navigate city traffic, it will easily learn to park.
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you come to that first conclusion? It seems difficult to tell who is the “furthest ahead” because it’s a pretty complex race. For starters, we can’t even say with certainty who all of the competitors are. Some are very quiet or at early stages but could be working on a breakthrough problem that turns out to be a pivot point. Some are specializing. Who is going to scale up the best and most cost efficient solid…
> How do you come to that first conclusion? I don't really trust any of the marketing (including videos) or friendly articles about how far along companies are. The best way to judge I've seen is by the mandatory reports companies testing in California must supply. By those, Waymo is far, far ahead as of 2016. They've driven 635,868 miles (two orders of magnitude more miles than their next closest competitor) and the…
Here's an article from February covering the California DMV reports:
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/california-dmv-autonomous-car-...
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#28Serious question: Why not acquire Tesla and position yourself leaps and bounds ahead of the other tech giants?
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#29Serious question: Why not acquire Tesla and position yourself leaps and bounds ahead of the other tech giants?
Because Tesla is a money losing, capital intensive business they don't know how to run. See e.g. their Motorola debacle.
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#30Can anyone put this figure in context? I'm inclined to imagine that $1.1B is chicken feed for Google.