Good move. I think the next step of mobility is a mobile robot. The cars of the future should be a central hub for move people between places, but able to do a lot more through physical manipulation, instead of becoming a enlarged mobile information terminal. Thus, developing cars as robots are going to be more useful in that future. I personally will invest time in building products that are mobility robots, not car…
A car can take you to work and instead of waiting in carpark, it can help you do stuff, that would be awesome XD
Hyundai acquires controlling stake in Boston Dynamics for $880M
11–20 of 146 posts
Re: Hyundai acquires controlling stake in Boston Dynamics for $880M
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just want my car to drive itself to service checks, when I'm at work. Save all that trouble of having to gamble that they have a car you can use, or there's a bus route that won't take you an hour back and forth. Self-driving done right could save me from having two cars. It could take me to work, drive back home, pickup the wife, drive her to work. Go back and pick me up in the afternoon, drop me of at home and th…
this would be the best usage for what we consider cars imaginable. also would negate the need to personally own a car. just order one from a fleet of autonomous cars if you are in need of mobility.
Firstly we need to spread out peoples work day. We can't all be at the office a 8:00, and go home at 16:00. it wouldn't make economical sense in have a fleet large enough to handle peak hours, but have the cars do nothing most of the day.
There's also details like: I would like a car to pick me up at 15:45, and drive me to the kindergarten, and that car MUST have a seat for a three year old (but not a seat of brand X, Y, or Z, because they're to small). Or I need a car with a trailer, or a truck, because I'm moving 500kg of dirt to the recycling station.
Most people shop around for cars and pick very specific cars that fit their needs. So renting for a fleet of cars also need a rather large variety and flexibility in allowed usage.
I believe that many would still want to buy their own cars, even if it's self-driving, to ensure it's available when they need it, and that it fulfil their specific needs.
If we didn't have all these specific needs, most of us could just take the bus, which in turn would make it feasible to have all the bus routes people would need.
Re: Hyundai acquires controlling stake in Boston Dynamics for $880M
#13They've gone from Google -> Softbank -> Hyundai in a few years. Does anyone know where their revenue is coming from currently? For all the flashy videos they put out, you so rarely see them that I'm not sure if they're just doing well on the B2B side (warehouse automation? military contracts?), or if they've been in the red for the last decade.
My two cents. If not military use or a very expensive niche use, e.g. for emergency services, then those things will have a pretty hard time to enter the mass-consumer market.
What will probably happen is that a Chinese company will be able to produce a 80% version of those machines for less than 1k. This is when those things will become interesting to consumers for whatever purpose those things can be used.
As long as the SPOT robot costs over 70k, nobody will even consider buying it.
Re: Hyundai acquires controlling stake in Boston Dynamics for $880M
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
this would be the best usage for what we consider cars imaginable. also would negate the need to personally own a car. just order one from a fleet of autonomous cars if you are in need of mobility.
Ideally yes, but there's a lot of hurdles to overcome. For many it would work just fine, but for other there's going to be minor details that makes it work less well. Firstly we need to spread out peoples work day. We can't all be at the office a 8:00, and go home at 16:00. it wouldn't make economical sense in have a fleet large enough to handle peak hours, but have the cars do nothing most of the day. There's also d…
But that’s the current state of the world.
Even if you have enough cars to meet peak demand you will have an efficiency saving (at least where I live you see a lot of cars in driveways during rush hour traffic).
That said I agree that for a lot of people their car is an extension of their home, they’ll keep the golf clubs and a coat in the boot etc. But for the 80% case of just carrying a rucksack to and from work there is a massive efficiency improvement to be had.
Re: Hyundai acquires controlling stake in Boston Dynamics for $880M
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
A car can take you to work and instead of waiting in carpark, it can help you do stuff, that would be awesome XD
I just want my car to drive itself to service checks, when I'm at work. Save all that trouble of having to gamble that they have a car you can use, or there's a bus route that won't take you an hour back and forth. Self-driving done right could save me from having two cars. It could take me to work, drive back home, pickup the wife, drive her to work. Go back and pick me up in the afternoon, drop me of at home and th…
Cars in that mode could be constrained to a less dangerous speed to limit damage in an accident. I don't want to drive to work at 20km/h, but once I'm out of the car, I don't really care how slowly it goes.
Of course, it wouldn't necessarily work to combine too broadly differing speeds on the same roads. But it would remove a bit of the "I'm not putting on my VR goggles to do work and trusting this car to drive to the office" fear.
Re: Hyundai acquires controlling stake in Boston Dynamics for $880M
#16They've gone from Google -> Softbank -> Hyundai in a few years. Does anyone know where their revenue is coming from currently? For all the flashy videos they put out, you so rarely see them that I'm not sure if they're just doing well on the B2B side (warehouse automation? military contracts?), or if they've been in the red for the last decade.
They bleed money and are not revenue positive yet. And all those re-acquisitions indicate that none of their parent company could provide a nurturing environment to enable the company to make profit. My two cents. If not military use or a very expensive niche use, e.g. for emergency services, then those things will have a pretty hard time to enter the mass-consumer market. What will probably happen is that a Chinese…
Re: Hyundai acquires controlling stake in Boston Dynamics for $880M
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ideally yes, but there's a lot of hurdles to overcome. For many it would work just fine, but for other there's going to be minor details that makes it work less well. Firstly we need to spread out peoples work day. We can't all be at the office a 8:00, and go home at 16:00. it wouldn't make economical sense in have a fleet large enough to handle peak hours, but have the cars do nothing most of the day. There's also d…
> it wouldn't make economical sense in have a fleet large enough to handle peak hours, but have the cars do nothing most of the day. But that’s the current state of the world. Even if you have enough cars to meet peak demand you will have an efficiency saving (at least where I live you see a lot of cars in driveways during rush hour traffic). That said I agree that for a lot of people their car is an extension of the…
True, but the difference is who's carrying the financial risk of the buying the car. Right now it's the individual consumers, who are mostly forced to do so, because better alternatives are not available.
Leasing companies would never buy a fleet of cars that would sit mostly unused. Their cars needs to be on the road most of the time.
This puts us back in Uber vs. taxis. Uber works because (depending on area and regulation) there cannot be sufficient taxis to handle peak demands, that wouldn't be financially sound for the taxi companies. Uber tries to fix this, by taping into idle cars in the driveways. A company that maintains a fleet of cars that you can just order on-demand, would always have to few cars for rush hour.
Re: Hyundai acquires controlling stake in Boston Dynamics for $880M
#18i thought that boston dynamics were a former DOD contractor, did this cause any problems with the authorization of the sale? (here it says that they got a lot of initial DARPA funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Dynamics )
(I don’t think this is true; I am of the belief that the hidden secret within most companies, regardless of size or industry, is that they’re way more boring and way less sophisticated than they would like to appear.)
Re: Hyundai acquires controlling stake in Boston Dynamics for $880M
#19Other tech companies can seemingly lose millions, as long as there's an advertising or data-mining angle to the product. Because Boston Dynamics aim to actually create physical products they then get valued lower?
Re: Hyundai acquires controlling stake in Boston Dynamics for $880M
#20i thought that boston dynamics were a former DOD contractor, did this cause any problems with the authorization of the sale? (here it says that they got a lot of initial DARPA funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Dynamics )
We just sold South Korea a bunch of actual weapons so I don’t think these could-be weapons are going to attract too much controversy. And if you think there’s some actual weaponry among the could-be weapons technology, well... Take a look around the neighborhood. Maybe that’s the point? (I don’t think this is true; I am of the belief that the hidden secret within most companies, regardless of size or industry, is tha…
Probably not, since South Korea maintains pretty good relations with its neighbors. South Korea (as well as the rest of the world) doesn't see the U.S. anymore as a rational partner, but as something to be managed with caution. North Korea is unironically seen as a more predictable and reliable enemy than the U.S. is seen as a reliable ally. Nobody is happy about this, but that's the reality.