It is not really that much! 1.1 B in 6 years on a moonshot project.
And aren't there tax advantages too?
Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
71–80 of 86 posts
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Given 1-4, $1.1B doesn't seem like much. Seriously, they'd make trillions from self-driving tech. They'd end up spinning off an Uber-like self-driving ride service, and then they can track you and serve ads to you wherever you go. The data mining potential alone is huge.
Bill every business for each delivered customer. Don't care to participate? Your steakhouse will show up on Google Maps if the user knows precisely where to zoom in or the exact name of the restaurant. Otherwise, "Hey Google, take me to a great steakhouse" and off we go..
No. Otherwise- Google's car doesn't have my favorite steakhouse, where I am going to meet my friends. I'm buying a Mazda.
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#73you really trust your family to be in car that doesn't have a steeringwheel and it's controlled by "don't be evil" google ???
Seriously people, wakeup!
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#74The top German car suppliers and car makers have accrued 10x the patents on autonomous driving Google has [0]. Bosch alone has 3x the number of patents. Yet hardly anybody talks about Bosch and Continental and Mercedes/Audi/BMW etc. [0] http://www.businessinsider.in/Whos-in-the-lead-in-developing...
They do generally tend to keep things very quiet until they launch.
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree you need massive amounts of training data. But the marginal value of that data diminishes rapidly after a certain point. Let's say Waymo spends $2 billion to get the training data necessary to produce a fully automated car. A few years later Uber has also spent $2 billion and has a the necessary training data. By that time Waymo has 10 times as much telemetry data, so its cars might be somewhat safer. But as…
People are not very rational. Almost all trips in cars are very short, yet people are still very concerned about range in electric cars. Being able to cover more exotic driving conditions ("Our cars also work during a severe hurricane") could be a very effective marketing strategy.
> People are not very rational. Almost all trips in cars are very short, yet people are still very concerned about range in electric cars
As they should be... What good is a car if it can't be used for the occasional long trip? I expect my car to be up to the task to go visit friends or family 200km away on a whim, after coming home from work, instead of sitting idly while my battery is charging for a couple hours... I'm sure many users have the same expectations. Are we irrational?
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#76But am I the only one thinking that maybe we are trying to solve the wrong kind of problem?
If we had spent the same amount of money into creating a grid of mini-train I believe that most cities would already have some working prototype...
And mini-train is a control problem that we could solve yesterday...
(With mini train I mean something roughly big as a car but that is constrained to move in some predefined path, it will means that they could move way faster than cars and be more space efficients...)
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#77I 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. That's true of software generally, but not will not be true of automated driving software. Windows, iOS, Facebook and YouTube have strong network effects. Google search and Microsoft Office offer a familiar user interface and superior features. Self driving software will have none of these benefits - there is no network effect, no significant user interface, and…
> 1) possibly being first to market;
If you are first to market with selfdriving cars AND manage to transform transportation into a ride-hailing service then you might get a natural regional monopoly wherever you build out the fleet support infrastructure, similar to other utility services. Plus brand recognition for that service.
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
The same tech that is being used in self driving cars could be repurposed for autonomous robots, and end up with a market much bigger than that of transportation. SDCs are just the easiest form of autonomous robots.
> SDCs are just the easiest form of autonomous robots. That's a claim I have never heard before and I don't agree with. You have some kind of argument to support that drive-by claim? Since there are no fully autonomous SDCs yet you'd have to explain away any existing autonomous robots.
Roads are a fairly structured and rule-based environment already designed with machines operating on them in mind. And those aspects that are not designed for the physical properties of cars are still designed to be easily perceptible by the human operators, e.g. signs, lane markings.
That can't be said for many other environments in which autonomous robots would have to operate.
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree you need massive amounts of training data. But the marginal value of that data diminishes rapidly after a certain point. Let's say Waymo spends $2 billion to get the training data necessary to produce a fully automated car. A few years later Uber has also spent $2 billion and has a the necessary training data. By that time Waymo has 10 times as much telemetry data, so its cars might be somewhat safer. But as…
People are not very rational. Almost all trips in cars are very short, yet people are still very concerned about range in electric cars. Being able to cover more exotic driving conditions ("Our cars also work during a severe hurricane") could be a very effective marketing strategy.
Sure, most trips are short. But short trips are best accomplished via walking, biking, public transit, or taxis. The only reason I want a car is for long trips. It can make short trips more convenient, but also if I were just buying it for short trips there's no point in spending the money, at least not living in a major city. Long trips are usually cost-prohibitive without a car that has decent range, at least relative to the cost of a gas-burning vehicle.
Re: Google Has Spent Over $1.1B on Self-Driving Tech
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
People are not very rational. Almost all trips in cars are very short, yet people are still very concerned about range in electric cars. Being able to cover more exotic driving conditions ("Our cars also work during a severe hurricane") could be a very effective marketing strategy.
> People are not very rational. Almost all trips in cars are very short, yet people are still very concerned about range in electric cars As they should be... What good is a car if it can't be used for the occasional long trip? I expect my car to be up to the task to go visit friends or family 200km away on a whim, after coming home from work, instead of sitting idly while my battery is charging for a couple hours...…
Yes, the absolute worst case for most people is you get a rental car.
Having family 100 miles away that you visit regularly is reason to get a 100+ mile range electric car. Having family that lives 100 miles away that you visit every 10 years is not.
NYC is a great example where many people making 100+k per year don't own a car because transportation != car.