VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance • Hacker News Board

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#71

Post by mrep » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 1:56 PM UTC

boxcardavin wrote: post #2

This is bizarre, I’m in non-car autonomy but I talk daily with car autonomy folks. Everyone has been expecting a consolidation of companies through acquisitions but drive.ai showed us that it’s probably not going to happen. At The Information mobility event last month one of the SoftBank fellas said that autonomous cars will be ‘won’ by those who can outspend everyone else. Looks like backing up billions with more bi…

> SoftBank fellas said that autonomous cars will be ‘won’ by those who can outspend everyone else.

Lol, of course they said that as their entire investment strategy is to throw more dumb money at startups than anyone else can possibly match. Their vision fund VC has been investing $100 billion dollars and they're planning on doing another $100 billion dollar fund. "To put the fund’s magnitude in perspective, its size is almost double the investments made by U.S. venture firms last year. PitchBook data shows that VC fundraising in the U.S. totaled $53.9 billion last year across more than 200 funds, and that was the largest annual raise in at least a decade." [0]

[0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/17/softbanks-100-billion-vision...

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#72

Post by bagacrap » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

cj wrote: post #70

trilila wrote: post #67

Given that VW was caught cheating emissions on a global scale, and far worse than other carmakers, i find it surprising that anyone on hackernews would consider buying their cars.

If the VW brand is too far below hacker news standards, what car brand isn’t? (Excluding Tesla, and other brands priced 40k+)

I can't think of a reason folks here would hate on Toyota, Honda, etc: companies that build practical, efficient, cheap cars, have well regarded engineering, and have met with incredible economic success.

False equivalency to say all car brands are like VW, which lied and cheated about emissions whilst marketing their product as Clean Diesel, and left their own customers and everyone else on planet Earth holding the bag.

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#73

Post by bagacrap » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 1:59 PM UTC

boxcardavin wrote: post #2

This is bizarre, I’m in non-car autonomy but I talk daily with car autonomy folks. Everyone has been expecting a consolidation of companies through acquisitions but drive.ai showed us that it’s probably not going to happen. At The Information mobility event last month one of the SoftBank fellas said that autonomous cars will be ‘won’ by those who can outspend everyone else. Looks like backing up billions with more bi…

I think Apple or the US govt would have won by now were that true.

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#74

Post by ghaff » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 2:05 PM UTC

solarkraft wrote: post #57

mac01021 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These definitions are rather vague. If the car is able to function even when noone responds to the request for intervention, how is that different from level five? Does it mean that it safely pulls over, where level 3 would just drop control of the vehicle in a dangerous scenario? Also, does level 5 entail general intelligence, in order to do things like follow the instructions of a traffic cop or parking attendant?

> Does it mean that it safely pulls over Yes (or just stop - the idea is that it will not crash). > general intelligence Your examples would most likely be situations that would be trained for. I doubt that any system in the next few (5-50) years will be able to adopt to a completely new situation as well as a human.

Yes, but there is still vagueness. Depending upon where you are and the circumstances, there may be no "safely pull over." I've certainly gotten into very low visibility situations on highways (snow squall, very heavy rain) where put on hazards and crawl along as best you can and pull over to the side of the road are pretty much equally bad alternatives.

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#75

Post by bagacrap » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #13

lovelycarboxyl wrote: post #3

Unrelated, but does anyone know how many electric cars have an autonomy of more than 700km, while also charging fully in less than one hour? Is that even possible with the current technology?

Most of the more expensive EVs come pretty close to that and seem to be competing on getting the numbers better there. E.g. I think Tesla is planning to break the 400 mile barrier pretty soon. 300 mile is pretty normal already. Most EVs charge pretty quickly to about 80%. 20 minutes to half an hour gets you plenty of range. Mostly EV owners don't charge to 100% unless they are at home or doing some overnight stop. I…

I know a lot of people who own EVs. Every single one of them also has a gas vehicle in the family. No one uses EVs for road trips. Afaict they don't belong to single-car households.

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#76

Post by clouddrover » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

RaceWon wrote: post #53

dmix wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a self driving car

> From a self driving car Cue up the [0] Porsche 919 vid to show what a human can do in a car... [0] https://youtu.be/KsLi7HgSuhI

And the next best, the fully electric Volkswagen ID.R: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRCiGABQupA

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#77

Post by pmorici » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 2:27 PM UTC

hodder wrote: post #69

pmorici wrote: post #66

Incumbent car companies seem to have recently realized they are about ~2 years away from being put out of business by Tesla. In the past two weeks we've seen the CEO of BMW step down with speculation it was over BMW's botched EV strategy. Now the VW / Ford alliance on electric and self driving.

They clearly are at no risk of being put out of business by Tesla. All electric car sales are still only a fraction of ICE and given Tesla’s stagnant sales nuns it looks like it will remain that way for a while. Tech early adopters have bought and most others aren’t interested until the price falls significantly and the reliability becomes something like a civic.

Tesla's sales and sales of EV's in general look like they are in the early days of an exponential growth curve. They have been at around 100% or better YOY sales growth for the past 3 quarters. At that rate it will only take a few years to go from niche to dominating the market. Car sales in general are flat or in slight decline and Tesla is seeing 100% YOY growth. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that if that trend continues for a couple more years some of the traditional auto makers are going to go out of business. The real nail in the coffin though will be if Tesla crack full self driving by 2021 which is what they stated they think they will do.

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#78

Post by yyyk » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 2:32 PM UTC

pmorici wrote: post #66

Incumbent car companies seem to have recently realized they are about ~2 years away from being put out of business by Tesla. In the past two weeks we've seen the CEO of BMW step down with speculation it was over BMW's botched EV strategy. Now the VW / Ford alliance on electric and self driving.

Even if the entire world now wanted Teslas and nothing but Teslas, the manufacturing ability is just not there. Inevitably the vast majority of the market would go to other companies. That was always the relation between Tesla and established car companies: Tesla has better EV technology, but others had the better manufacturing ability by far.

In theory, this should favour the established companies - Tesla doesn't patent their EV advances, and they aren't the only EV player anyway. It should be easier to add EV tech to existing chain than to establish an entire new supply chain. But every established company is very invested in ICE, and has large internal lobbies.

It's interesting to see who gets the better of this - the established car companies' objective advantage or their internal political disadvantage. The recent moves might suggest these established companies are getting their internal politics in order, which should allow them to do EV better.

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#79

Post by InTheArena » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 2:45 PM UTC

If this trend continues, I really expect there to be a massive bidding war for Tesla before too long. When bears/shorts on tesla Complain about Tesla’s market cap, they seem to always forget the fact that Tesla is well ahead of any of these players in terms of both deployed hardware and data collection. This merger and investment brings Argo’s valuation up to you around $8 billion.

Re: VW invests $2.6B in self-driving startup Argo AI as part of Ford alliance

#80

Post by pmorici » Sat, Jul 13, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

yyyk wrote: post #78

pmorici wrote: post #66

Incumbent car companies seem to have recently realized they are about ~2 years away from being put out of business by Tesla. In the past two weeks we've seen the CEO of BMW step down with speculation it was over BMW's botched EV strategy. Now the VW / Ford alliance on electric and self driving.

Even if the entire world now wanted Teslas and nothing but Teslas, the manufacturing ability is just not there. Inevitably the vast majority of the market would go to other companies. That was always the relation between Tesla and established car companies: Tesla has better EV technology, but others had the better manufacturing ability by far. In theory, this should favour the established companies - Tesla doesn't pa…

I realize that is the prevailing opinion. I think it's wrong. No incumbent out there has has yet made an electric vehicle that can even match Tesla's 2012 model S on range and performance. The electric cars they have come out with are money losers for them. Fiat's CEO famously told people he hoped no one bought the Fiat 500 Electric because the company loses $14,000 on every sale.